Check resumes and CV, arrest records, places of employment, social media profiles, photos and videos, public records, skilled experts, publications and memorials . The weapon in at least some of the Alabama cases was a .380 handgun that tended to jam. Presley and Gamble had developed a simplemodus operandi. Updated: June 22, 2016 . Records show he was questioned Hemphill said he was interrogated for hours and held for 11 days before being released. 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. But Flowers deserves to have a fair trial and prosecution, he said. Who was he? Jurors at Flowers trials had only heard of one suspect who could have worn Fila Grant Hills Flowers although investigators never found the shoes they said he wore. 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. Hemphill also wasnt held briefly. Search by Name Search . It was still in the morning time.". "They were investigating that intently back then. We know that Willie James Hemphill had been residing in Gaffney, Cherokee County, South Carolina 29341. He is aiming to get bail, which is rare in capital murder cases. 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 . Username. Their names are Michael Lee Boies , Crystal Davis , and six others. It's not like you're going to say, 'Yeah I robbed this 7-11, but I didn't rob that 7-11.'". Armstrong questions whether Flowers could have carried out the killings of four people execution-style. The prosecutors had said repeatedly at trial that the only suspect seriously investigated was Flowers. The podcast, which uncovered evidence used by Flowers to get his conviction overturned, spoke with witness Clemmie Fleming. According to the ledger, about$287 was missing from the cash drawer the morning of the murders. Fourteen lawyers. … 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. While Presley drove the action, Gamble kept his gun trained on the scene in case anyone tried to flee. He thought back to when Small took the gun. Only now, a new name has surfaced. Lived In Sidon MS, Indianapolis IN, Prince George VA, Clarksville TN. A shoeprint in a pool of blood found in the Winona furniture store was found to be from a Grant Hill Fila shoethe footwear Gamble, McKenzie (and just about every other young man in America) was wearing while in Mississippi. 2. Even before finding the gun, Armstrong had doubts about whether Flowers played a role in the quadruple murder. Presley murdered four people and wounded three others in a spree of robberies and murders that year. James Mather is a British sound editor. Jessie Mae Hemphill [1]1923-2006 Blues musician, singer, songwriter, guitarist, percussionist Blues musician and vocalist Jessie Mae Hemphill [2] was a paradox. Menu. But he believed Gamble's denial. Willie married Janeen Winegar on August 10, 2003 in Las Vegas, Nevada. 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. Hired by Starz to examine the case, Saums said the crime"suggests somebody who has done it before. Hemphill said he was wearing his Filas when in walked into the Sheriffs Department. 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. "I don't know nothing about it.". But Curtis Flowers is somehow still not cleared of the gruesome quadruple murder on July 16, 1996. 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. 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. Why offer up another suspect? Psychologist John R. Goff tested Flowers, concluding his IQ was 75. Hallmon told APM Reports that he became a prosecution witness in spring 2001 after being arrested on multiple drug charges. He said that while in jail he talked to Evans about the Flowers case, and he saw a chance to gain his freedom. After months of looking for Twanda Woods, In the Dark reporters located her a few months ago at her trailer in Winona, half a mile south of Tardy Furniture. 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. "After a short time, we realized that he didn't know anything about the case.". Illuminating Journalism from American Public Media. The crime had a random and senseless quality to it. Gamble and Presley are serving life in prison for their Alabama crime spree. Willie James Hemphill has done many terrible things. In The Darks reporting on the case documented the inequities and outright barbarism of Mississippis criminal justice system. WrongManleans tentatively fingers Doyle Simpson as the prime suspect. 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. They didnt question him about other suspects or bring up Flowers name. It hurts my feelings.. 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. (1909). 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. So, if I am forced to pick an alternative perpetrator in this awful case I would lean toward the Birmingham Boys, Presley in particular. Willie James Hemphill, age 37, Justice, IL Search Report. And Hemphill had a history of committing crimes in Winona and Memphis. Case Number &colon; 20-11001. 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 contained no mention of the Alabama suspects. 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. Burial will follow in Hemphill Star Cemetery, Boyce. He was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Best Sound for the film Belfast. Find Willie Hemphill's phone number, address, and email on Spokeo, the leading people search directory for contact information and public records. For Flowers, the new information including Flemings changed story adds weight to his case for a full acquittal. 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. Montgomery County Sheriff Bill Thornburg searched Moores home and found a size 10.5 Fila Grant Hill shoebox in a dresser at her house. Selected filmography. And in the first Flowers trial, in 1997, he testified that "there were numerous suspects" in the early days of the investigation. The Dallas Morning News. 1.58 3.33 /5. The whole time Ive been telling them, I dont remember the day, Fleming said. Not the right Willie? It was either a paid hit on a single individual that went bad when other employees entered the room, or the awful deed was done for the hell of it. And Gamble wore Fila sneakers the same brand of shoe that left a bloody footprint at the Tardy Furniture scene. But perhaps the most intriguing new development is the emergence of a man who verbally attacked journalists on the podcast while denying he was in town on the day of the murders. 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. 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. On 03/12/2020 Willie Hemphill filed a Prisoner - Other Prisoner lawsuit against Warden. Gamble never discharged his weapon. 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). He never responded. During nearly 30 years of crimes, Willie James Hemphill has shown a quick temper, and a penchant for daytime robberies and violence against women. 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. 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. "He would have just told me everything and anything at that point," Goldberg said. The ugly facts of Hemphills past werent ugly enough for the podcast In The Dark emphasized its clear disdain of him. In the sixth trial, inmate Odell Hallmon testified that Flowers told him about carrying out the Tardy murders, helping lead to Flowers conviction. 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. Inside the store, authorities discovered bloody footprints left behind by a Grant Hill Fila basketball shoe. Mississippi Highway Patrol Lt. Wayne Miller, the investigator who created the lineup, testified that the only suspect pictured in the lineup was Flowers. His misdeeds, while abhorrent, are also likely inseparable from his decades-long history of poverty and addiction. Eight persons linked to this address. In the course of these crimes, one employee was shot in the leg and another in the back (both survived) and Presley was the shooter in both cases. He told APM Reports that he was arrested and questioned in the . But we found a document showing that another man, Willie James Hemphill, had also been questioned just days after the murders. The FBI checked it out. 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. Reporter: Mr Hemphill. You may also light a candle in honor of Willie James . But we found a document showing that another man, Willie James Hemphill, had also been questioned just days after the murders. Find an Obituary. 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. Not the right Willie? When Baran and her producer eventually tracked down the right Hemphill, he told them, Yeah, they actually had me as a suspect in that.. It wasnt until 2016 that defense lawyers took a closer look at Armstrongs statement that he found a .380 handgun. When Jeffrey Armstrong heard his dog barking, he went outside tosee the reason for the commotion. "I can't recall seeing him that day," Woods said. 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. 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. The truths going to come out.. A surveillance camera revealed that the killer was wielding a 380 pistol that jammed repeatedly. A defense expert responded in a sworn statement that the bloody footprints left behind by the popular shoe could havebeen anywhere between sizes 8.5 and 11. Whoever did this crime (the Tardy murders) was a good shot.. 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. Their size was a.380. Curtis Flowers was raised in a loving home by a gospel-singing father and a mother known for her culinary and entrepreneurial abilities. Six trials and six successful appeals. If Flowers did what he is accused of doing, he deserves his punishment, Armstrong said. He quoted Bertha Tardy as saying he would have to be responsible for paying for the batteries. Later, he said, one of the officers, Vince Small, came by, and he handed the officer the gun. But it isnt necessary to prove a case against any of these people; the real scandal is that the existence of alternative suspects was systematically withheld from defense counsel. 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. The district attorneys office isnt commenting. 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. <a . The answer was yes many, many times. Since police, sheriff's deputies, jailers and highway patrol investigators work for the state, if they turn up anything that casts doubt on the defendant's guilt, the prosecutor must hand it over to the defense. 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. 614 records for Willie Hemphill. And Hemphill had actually lived for a time in Winona. Law enforcement clearly saw Hemphill as a prime suspect. Flowers, the individuals I reference as the Birmingham boys. Fleming had said six times since 1996 she saw Flowers running from the store on the morning of the murders. John Johnson, the DAs investigator, told the jury, I think they talked to him for five minutes. "We have never had any evidence that showed anything other than this defendant's guilt," Evans said. 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. 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. Winona, Mississippi lies three hours west of Birmingham on Highway 82. "I think we pretty much ruled him out from the get-go," Matthews testified. 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. Lab officials, however, say the gun never arrived and was never tested. View Actual Score Check Background . An August 15, 1996, article in The Winona Times reported that law enforcement officials in three states "released statements that they believe [Presley and Gamble] could be linked to Winona's case.". Search by Name. That night, according to Moore, Hemphill was home with an ounce of marijuana, some of which they smoked together. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark. His mother lived there, and he had gone to school there on and off. Hemphill was born on September 10, 1971. Reporters from In the Dark tried to contact Hemphill online to present him with these findings. 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. View More. Both men bounced from one traumatic living arrangement to another with no respite. When In The Dark spoke to Woods, she denied the two were together. Then why havent the defense attorneys who have represented Mr. How did your name get involved in this?, Hemphill: I wasnt in the city. We encourage you to research and . Why was he questioned? Police arrived at the factory and interviewed employee Katherine Snow. It was a .380-caliber automatic handgun, coated in dirt and rust. He explained his suspicion that the gun might have something to do with the Tardy murders. Following their Alabama crime spree, Presley and Gamble fled north to Boston, where Gamble had relatives. In the 1980s and '90s, Hemphill spent time in Memphis. Yet theyre willing to hand him over to the prosecution, to possibly watch him die. Case Details Parties Documents Dockets . He attended Erskine College, where he earned a A.B. Historical Person Search Search Search Results Results Willie James Hemphill (1952 - 2006) Try FREE for 14 days Try FREE for 14 days. Whoever killed the four victims in Winona was beset by demons. Selected filmography. 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. Contact Jerry Mitchell at 601-961-7064 or jmitchell@gannett.com. How do we create a person's profile? Share to Twitter. OBITUARIES. Hemphill was held in jail for 11 days, according to county records, though it's not clear why he was held. Three of the four were each killed with a single head shot. Yes and no. It happens. His father had, for just a few months, been the first sheriff in the county, but returned to farming his land. When reporters talked to Hemphill last year, he said investigators cleared him because he had an alibi he called it "airtight." 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. By the time Presley and Gamble were arrested, Doug Evans wasnt interested in alternative scenarios; he knew Curtis was the killer. January 5, 1960 - August 13, 2009. He allegedly stabbed a woman with a screwdriver, among other violent crimes. 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. Look, Ive got something yall need to get, he said he told them. Past Addresses: Shelby NC, Shelby NC +7 more. View contact information: phones, addresses, emails and networks. He allegedly committed robberies to fund a drug habit. 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. Saums pointed out that Simpson who has since died lied to police about how he had gotten the gun. Who was he? "You're confusing me. Baran found Hemphills booking card showing he had been arrested and jailed a few days after the killing. For starters, a key prosecution witness who testified she saw Flowers sprinting from the front of the store at the time of the murders, has been discredited, he said. Like LaSamuel Gamble, Hemphill wore Fila shoes and had a criminal record. 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 freely admitted that he had been a suspect and even says that, although innocent, he would have made a more convincing suspect than Curtis. 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. Steven McKenzie, the driver of the getaway car in the pawn shop murders, was arrested on August 1 in his hometown of Boston, Massachusetts. After a multistate manhunt, Presley and Gamble were arrested in Norfolk, Virginia. 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. 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. Born in 2 Jun 1941 and died in 27 May 2008 Gaffney, South Carolina Willie James Hemphill Her sister says she was in the house with her and not where she said she was.. 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. Saums believes whoever carried out the crime had inside information. Not long after Armstrong found the gun in October 2001, two police officers happened to pull him over for speeding. You can send your sympathy in the guestbook provided and share it with the family. Record that.. Find Willie Hemphill's phone number, address, and email on Spokeo, the leading online directory for contact information. Hemphill, now almost 50, hasnt been arrested for violence in more than a decade, according to the rap sheet assembled on In The Darks website. His alibi is weak, according to In The Dark. 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.". 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. Green is a reporter in Toronto. Illuminating Journalism from American Public Media. "If he's guilty, he's guilty.". Sarah Warnock and Jerry Mitchell/Clarion Ledger, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. We went to boot camp together., The officers denial dont make me mad, he said. 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. "I was here in Winona," Woods said. EPISODE 16. In total, he killed four people and wounded three others in the space of just three months. They did, however, find bullets, bullet fragments and shell casings at the crime scene. 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. When we finally found Hemphill, living in Indianapolis, he had some very surprising things to say about the case . Prosecutors said repeatedly at trial that the only suspect seriously investigated was Flowers. Resides in Greenwood, MS. Just weeks ago, however, reporters discovered that Hemphill had an upcoming court date in Indianapolis and met him there. They also discovered an unfired .380 bullet, which might suggest the gun jammed. And so, in the corridors of the courthouse last week, a female journalist with In The Dark confronted Hemphill about his airtight alibi. 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. He also tried to shoot his own 12-year-old son who was hiding in a closet, though the boy survived. But at Curtis Flowers' trials, the prosecution downplayed any investigation of other suspects. By licks he meant places to rob.. She said that investigators have never questioned her about Hemphill's story. We collect and match historical records that Ancestry users have contributed to their family trees to create each person's profile. But, just like Curtis Flowers, Doyle Simpson fails the motive test. Share to Tumblr. A bloody shoe print found in the store (left), and an investigator's sketch comparing the print to the Fila Grant Hill sneakers.

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