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Memphis is two hours north of Winona, just across the border with Tennessee. Although authorities quicklysettled on Flowers as their main suspect, he wasnt arrested until seven months later. 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. | BillionGraves We are testing a new layout for the record page. Their names are Michael Lee Boies , Crystal Davis , and six others. They contained no mention of the Alabama suspects. Hemphill seemed surprised when reminded that he'd told In the Dark in June 2018 that he was with an old friend named Twanda Woods. Following that arrest, Hemphill committed crimes nearly continuously for the next three decades. Why was he questioned? Sarah Warnock and Jerry Mitchell/Clarion Ledger, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. 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. In October 2015, almost 20 years after the murders at Tardy Furniture, one of Curtis Flowers' lawyers was paging through his case file, when she saw a familiar face. It hurts my feelings.. When Baran and her producer eventually tracked down the right Hemphill, he told them, Yeah, they actually had me as a suspect in that.. Can Marcus Presleys affidavit be trusted? Willie James Hemphill Addresses Click Here For Willie James Hemphill's Last Known Address 1241 Hatfield Dr, Evansville, IN 47714 1001 Mississippi Ave, Greenwood, MS 38930. 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. In total, he killed four people and wounded three others in the space of just three months. Follow him onFacebookandTwitter. Burial will follow in Hemphill Star Cemetery, Boyce. 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. The Dallas Morning News. Photos. Willie James Hemphill Birth 27 May 1919 Death 14 Jul 2000 (aged 81) Burial. And Hemphill had actually lived for a time in Winona. 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. The show has won rightful fame for its work helping to save Flowers life. 5 Visits. 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. Nothing in the investigative file for the case explains why officers let him go. But, just like Curtis Flowers, Doyle Simpson fails the motive test. 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. At first, Willie James Hemphill was calm. <p>Prosecutors have always said that Curtis Flowers was the only serious suspect in the Tardy Furniture investigation. But maybe she didnt see anyone at all. Quantico National Cemetery. But attempting to deliver another black man into that same system goes against its good work. Marcus Presley, the gunman in the Alabama crime spree, was staring up at Ali from among the six photos in the lineup. And there he was. They didnt question him about other suspects or bring up Flowers name. It took the In the Dark team a full year to track Hemphill down in an Indianapolis courtroom (he's still getting into trouble). 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). When Snow told police that the man she saw was about 5-foot-6, investigator John Johnson corrected her, saying she had already given the heights as 5-foot-10, according to an audio tape obtained by APM Reports. 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. The Tardy Furniture murders were committed at a store on Front Street in Winona, Mississippi, at about 10 a.m., and around the time that one of the store's employees, Carmen Rigby, was returning with a bank bag. Are you a sl*t? It's not like you're going to say, 'Yeah I robbed this 7-11, but I didn't rob that 7-11.'". 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. Wrong Manpresented us with a small group of criminal justice professionals who started out believing that Curtis was probably the killer. 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. Baran noted that Hemphill was known to love the song Nasty Bitch by Bust Down it was not for kids, Baran said which he would sing and dance to on Winonas streets in those days. Sign the Guest Book . She said that investigators have never questioned her about Hemphill's story. It was a .380-caliber automatic handgun, coated in dirt and rust. The murders rocked the small town. Willie Dixon - The Big Three Trio 1947-1952 (Roots N' Blues C 46216) FLAC . With the discrediting of Hallmon and other witnesses, Saums said, I think the district attorney would find it hard to prosecute Curtis Flowers again, much less convict him.. What follows are selected incidents from his past. Between June 19th, 1996 and June 30thof that year, Presley was involved in five robberies at gunpoint. So, if Curtis didnt do this terrible deed, who did? Who was he? Investigators John Johnson and Jack Matthews denied on the stand knowing anything about them. If the state Supreme Court were to order a seventh trial for Flowers, the district attorney would face a difficult task, Saums said. The district attorneys office isnt commenting. 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. In the months before the Tardy Furniture murders, Presley hit a grocery store, a fireworks retailer, three gas stations and three liquor stores. When we finally found Hemphill, living in Indianapolis, he had some very surprising things to say about the case. Each victim of the July 16, 1996 murders was murdered execution styleone or two bullets to the back of the head. Explosive end to case thats rocked America. Doug Evans, the district attorney who prosecuted Flowers in all six trials, has declined to be interviewedby APM Reports and has not returned calls from the Clarion Ledger. He allegedly stabbed a woman with a screwdriver, among other violent crimes. Both his father, Archie, and his sonbelieve he will be free one day. 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. 5 Visits. 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. But Flowers deserves to have a fair trial and prosecution, he said. The judge denied Flowers' request to attend his mother funeral here on July 21. I dont think they learned anything.. Yet theyre willing to hand him over to the prosecution, to possibly watch him die. Willie Ray Hemphill, Jr., 49, of Bryan, passed away Thursday, August 13, 2009 at his residence. He was born on December 6, 1948 in Weir, Mississippi the son of Eddie Allen and Garner Lee Edwards Hemphill. But we found a document showing that another man, Willie James Hemphill, had also been questioned just days after the murders. And then Hemphill stormed off, ending the interview. He attended Erskine College, where he earned a A.B. 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. While talking to them, he said he told them about his discovery. Check resumes and CV, arrest records, places of employment, social media profiles, photos and videos, public records, skilled experts, publications and memorials . Menu. 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 . Prosecutors said repeatedly at trial that the only suspect seriously investigated was Flowers. 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. The podcast has never cared about the fundamental horrors of the justice system; it just wants to ensure that those horrors only happen to the correct people. Presley and Gamble did four of the June heists together and one crime was perpetrated by Presley alone. 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. Both involved store employees who were shot execution-style, a .380 handgun that might have jammed, and a suspect wearing Fila shoes. Menu. "I was out of the whole jurisdiction in another state.". The obituary was featured in The Bryan-College Station Eagle on August 16, 2009. They also discovered an unfired .380 bullet, which might suggest the gun jammed. When we finally found Hemphill, living in Indianapolis, he had some very surprising things to say about the case . A photo array that contains Marcus Presley (No. <a . "After a short time, we realized that he didn't know anything about the case.". 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. Saums said it makes sense the killers would have left through the side door, rather than go out the front door onto busy Front Street, the small towns main drag. Six trials and six successful appeals. He died on December 28, 1908, at his home in the section of Abbeville called Fort Pickens, and is buried in Melrose Cemetary, Abbeville. 2. with Reverend Shane Russell officiating, assisted by Max Bennett. The FBI checked it out. The two men had family in both Boston and Norfolk. And the gun that Armstrong says he discovered is additionally important . In 1880 James, now 16, has an additional. "Because once you get people on a roll to admitting to crimes, they just don't stop. 0 Rate Willie. Ive been confused of the day from the beginning. When reporters talked to Hemphill last year, he said investigators cleared him because he had an alibi he called it "airtight." Willie James Hemphill's alibi doesn't check out TIMELINE: Hemphill's long criminal record. (Although that figure is, at best, an educated guess.). 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. The ugly facts of Hemphills past werent ugly enough for the podcast In The Dark emphasized its clear disdain of him. ", If Evans and his prosecution witnesses knowingly or unknowingly withheld evidence from the defense of other suspects in the Winona killings, they could be in violation of the Brady rule, named after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that says a criminal defendant must be given evidence that could point toward his innocence. Gamble never discharged his weapon. Mr. Willie James Hemphill, of 1119-101 Kevin Lane, died Thursday, November 9, 2017. Contact Jerry Mitchell at 601-961-7064 or jmitchell@gannett.com. He took the gun and placed it into a nearby shed. WINONA Renowned pathologist Dr. Michael Baden said evidence he reviewed of the 1996 Tardy Furniture slayings suggests more than one personcarried out the quadruple murder. It was all make believe. Simpson's brother Emmett was an early suspect, too a fact Matthews had himself testified to in the second Flowers trial. That day in October 2015, Ali was looking at a photo lineup that law enforcement had used to implicate Flowers in the Tardy case. Case Details. Willie James Hemphill, Willie J Hemphill, Willie J Hemphill, Willie James Hemphill. Prosecutors have always said that Curtis Flowers was the only serious suspect in the Tardy Furniture investigation. In the Dark,episode 10, makes it clear that the prosecution committed what is called a Brady violation by failing to inform defense counsel that Hemphill had been a suspect early in the investigation. 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. His full criminal history is too lengthy to reproduce here. If Flowers did what he is accused of doing, he deserves his punishment, Armstrong said. And he's shown a quick and violent temper, particularly with women who don't comply with his demands. Miller would not comment. View More. 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. His age is 79. Podcasts should stick to exonerating the innocent. And so, in the corridors of the courthouse last week, a female journalist with In The Dark confronted Hemphill about his airtight alibi. His misdeeds, while abhorrent, are also likely inseparable from his decades-long history of poverty and addiction. Three of the four were each killed with a single head shot. Police arrived at the factory and interviewed employee Katherine Snow. 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. 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. Service: 11 am Saturday, March 3, 201. Sure, he had worked at Tardys in the past. Only now, a new name has surfaced. NEWSPAPERS. Their size was a.380. Miller also asked the investigator to interrogate Presley and Gamble about the Tardy Furniture murders. Saums believes whoever carried out the crime had inside information. 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). That night, according to Moore, Hemphill was home with an ounce of marijuana, some of which they smoked together. Find Willie Hemphill's phone number, address, and email on Spokeo, the leading online directory for contact information. Why offer up another suspect? Maybe he and Doyle were co-perpetrators. Willie James Hemphill, Willie J Hemphill, Williae Hemphill. 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. "They were investigating that intently back then. Her new position on exactly what happened that morning is likely to be heard by a jury if Fleming faces one for a seventh time. 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. They wanted to ask him about his alibi for the day of the Tardy Furniture murders, an alibi that hadn't checked out. "I don't know nothing about it.". The officer who was with Small when they pulled over Armstrong for speeding told APM Reports that Armstrong had indeed given them a handgun, which was turned over to the district attorneys office. Miller, the Mississippi investigator who made the lineup and asked for the two to be interrogated, declined to answer questions from APM Reports. Hired by Starz to examine the case, Saums said the crime"suggests somebody who has done it before. Not the right Willie? Later, he said, one of the officers, Vince Small, came by, and he handed the officer the gun. Convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh has been sentenced to life in prison for killing his wife and son. State investigator Jack Matthews, one of those who had read Hemphill his rights, said hed only talked to Hemphill for a short time before realizing he didnt know anything. Following their Alabama crime spree, Presley and Gamble fled north to Boston, where Gamble had relatives. He died on May 27, 2008 at age 66. The district's Republicans should nominate James Hemphill as their candidate for Congress in the May 3 primary. View Tommy Hemphill results including current phone number, address, relatives, background check report, and property record with Whitepages. It was still in the morning time.". But both denied having committed the Tardy murders and said they'd never even been to Mississippi. According to the ledger, about$287 was missing from the cash drawer the morning of the murders. In The Dark proved that Curtis Flowers was railroaded by an unjust system. 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. At first he was reluctant to divulge who he was with that morning, but later said it was a woman named Twanda Woods. Steven McKenzie, the driver of the getaway car in the pawn shop murders, was arrested on August 1 in his hometown of Boston, Massachusetts. In The Darks reporting on the case documented the inequities and outright barbarism of Mississippis criminal justice system. Baran found Hemphills booking card showing he had been arrested and jailed a few days after the killing. 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. Willie James Hemphill, 38. Despite raising earthshaking doubts about the justice system, the show ultimately conforms to the systems logic that crime, denuded of context, must be solved and punished. There is little doubt that Hemphill has done terrible things. The police there picked up the investigation and also apparently probed the Tardy Furniture connection. He told APM Reports that he was arrested and questioned in the early days of the investigation. But this week she told journalist Madeleine Baran that she was wrong. 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. Again, he denied ever being there. A surveillance camera revealed that the killer was wielding a 380 pistol that jammed repeatedly. "Yeah we was leaving. That brings us to a theory that has been explored extensively by some of the folks currently representing Mr. Her rough exterior portrayed a tough, independent woman. And why didnt DA Doug Evans even consider the Presley-Gamble connection? Flowers gave authorities conflicting statements about the times he went to these places. 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. Mark Weingarten is an American production sound mixer.He has been nominated for three Academy Awards in the category Best Sound Mixing, winning in 2017 for Dunkirk.He has worked on more than 120 films since 1987. He told APM Reports that he was arrested and questioned in the . Flowers, the individuals I reference as the Birmingham boys. Eight days later, Tardy and three others working for the store were killed execution-style. His website is. Her sister says she was in the house with her and not where she said she was.. Like LaSamuel Gamble, Hemphill wore Fila shoes and had a criminal record. 614 records for Willie Hemphill. 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. Law enforcement had interviewed a different suspect with a violent criminal history, Willie James Hemphill a fact which was not disclosed to the defense. 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. "[I]t's almost like a hair trigger that would cause a reversal if you've got false testimony that is significant.". Winona, Mississippi lies three hours west of Birmingham on Highway 82. The case status is Pending - Other Pending. He said that while in jail he talked to Evans about the Flowers case, and he saw a chance to gain his freedom. 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. Inside the store, authorities discovered bloody footprints left behind by a Grant Hill Fila basketball shoe. EPISODE 16. William is related to Alicia Kristen Hemphill . The fourth and fifth trials ended with hung juries. Asked if she remembered where she was when the murders happened, she recalled the morning clearly. Presley murdered four people and wounded three others in a spree of robberies and murders that year. Historical Person Search Search Search Results Results willie james hemphill (1955 - 2006) Try FREE for 14 days Try FREE for 14 days. It was Geraldine. Maybe Doyle did the deed and reported his gun stolen to throw everyone off the scent. Grief Support. 23 Matches for Willie Hemphill . Submit an Obituary. Authorities put together alineup later that day of black-and-white photos, and she identified Flowers from the lineup as the man she briefly saw that morning when she came outside to move her car. Username. When the podcasts reporter Parker Yesko confronted Hemphill about whether he committed the murders, he denied it, and the show included audio of the hideous, misogynistic things he said in response. The only other such form in the file was signed by Flowers. They fell out and broke. Goldberg couldn't tell whether he was telling the truth. There are 60+ professionals named "Willie Hemphill", who use LinkedIn to exchange information, ideas, and opportunities. Presley wasnt the only suspect defense attorneys didnt know investigators had seriously considered. 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. I was scared I was going to go to jail.. 1.58 3.33 /5. Share to Reddit. . Flowers through six trials present Presley and Gamble as an alternative theory of the crime? 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. When Armstrong first saw the gun in 2001, he thought back five years to the quadruple murder at Tardy Furniture, remembering that authorities had never found a murder weapon. 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. Reporters from In the Dark tried to contact Hemphill online to present him with these findings. 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. The crime itself was extraordinary, but the case drew In The Darks attention because a local prosecutor had tried Flowers six times for the murders. The truths going to come out.. Marcus Presley sometimes accompanied by LaSamuel Gamble had committed a string of robberies in 1996 in and around Birmingham, with the same modus operandi. 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. Robert Reid Hemphill's brother, James Calvin Hemphill, was born in Due West, South Carolina, on May 18, 1850. Willie James Hemphill Obituary. Like LaSamuel Gamble, Hemphill wore Fila shoes and had a criminal record. INDIANAPOLIS At first, Willie James Hemphill was calm. 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. 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 . Last month, the Supreme Court overturned Flowers latest conviction, citing In The Darks reporting. The podcasts reporters spent months methodically proving that prosecutors systematically denied black people a seat in the jury box, and how a man who is likely innocent has been repeatedly sentenced to death. Me and her was leaving," he said, forfeiting his Memphis alibi altogether and placing himself a short walk from Tardy Furniture. Past Addresses: Shelby NC, Shelby NC +7 more. Asked to clarify what he'd just said, Hemphill became agitated. Menu. Photos. Following his release from prison in 2013,Hallmon tried to run over a Carroll County sheriff's deputy while escaping a drug bust. Resides in Greenwood, MS. Look, Ive got something yall need to get, he said he told them. 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. Willie James Hemphill in Georgia Fulton County arrested for U/S VGCSA POSS* BLOG; CATEGORIES. And Gamble wore Fila sneakers the same brand of shoe that left a bloody footprint at the Tardy Furniture scene. Presley and Gamble had developed a simplemodus operandi. Montgomery County Sheriff Bill Thornburg searched Moores home and found a size 10.5 Fila Grant Hill shoebox in a dresser at her house. 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. But we found a document showing that another man, Willie James Hemphill, had also been questioned just days after the murders. But that doesnt make Doyle a cold killer. When we finally found Hemphill, living in Indianapolis, he had some very surprising things to say about the case. Willie James Hemphill Willie Hemphill (1919 - 2000) Jump to: Bio graphy Family Photos Comments Obit uary. Name. 1 hr 4 min . LOW HIGH. Share to Pinterest. After a multistate manhunt, Presley and Gamble were arrested in Norfolk, Virginia. 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. Born in 2 Jun 1941 and died in 27 May 2008 Gaffney, South Carolina Willie James Hemphill Passed away February 25, 2012. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008); The Social Network (2010) He told us the truth … The statement that he gave in court I made sure was the truth before we used it.. The podcast, which uncovered evidence used by Flowers to get his conviction overturned, spoke with witness Clemmie Fleming. Case Details Parties Documents Dockets . James appears the first time in the 1870 Federal Census as a six year-old, living with two brothers and a sister on his parents farm in Lampasas County, Texas. "False testimony is a corruption of the truth-finding process of a trial," Gershman said. When Willie Hemphill was born on 14 August 1891, in Mississippi, United States, her father, Thomas Wiley Hemphill, was 23 and her mother, Izora Sullivan, was 21. She said she had seen somebody at 7:15 a.m. outside Simpsons car at the factory. UNLOCK PROFILE. You may also light a candle in honor of Willie James . By his own account, someone told investigators that they'd seen him on Front Street that morning, though Hemphill has said repeatedly that he wasn't there. She said the shoes had belonged to her son, who no longer lived there. APM Reports recently interviewed a man named Willie James Hemphill, who said he was a suspect early in the investigation.