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. 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. Share Obituary. On November 16, 2015, Marcus Presley signed an affidavit claiming that Lasamuel Gamble and Steven McKenzie (the driver of the getaway car) had been in Mississippi the day of the Winona murders and had returned with several hundred dollars in their pockets after claiming to have hit a lick (committed a crime). Nationwide News Pty Ltd 2023. In the sixth trial, inmate Odell Hallmon testified that Flowers told him about carrying out the Tardy murders, helping lead to Flowers conviction. According to court records, he was "swinging a machete and causing a. Lived In Sidon MS, Indianapolis IN, Prince George VA, Clarksville TN. He died on July 14, 2000 at age 81. 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. A series of Willie James Hemphill mugshots ranging from 2000 through 2016. The show revealed that the district attorneys office bullied and threatened people into lying on the witness stand. This case was filed in U.S. Courts Of Appeals, U.S. Court Of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. Just weeks ago, however, reporters discovered that Hemphill had an upcoming court date in Indianapolis and met him there. 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 . View Tommy Hemphill results including current phone number, address, relatives, background check report, and property record with Whitepages. F.T. (1870), A.M. (1872), and LL.D. 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. 1809 Gatewood Aven, Greensboro, NC 27405-6727 is the last known address for Willie. The police there picked up the investigation and also apparently probed the Tardy Furniture connection. 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. Find Willie Hemphill's phone number, address, and email on Spokeo, the leading people search directory for contact information and public records. 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. At a hearing, the attorney generals office told the judge that prosecutors knew of no such gun. SEND FLOWERS. Select this result to view William Thomas Hemphill's phone number, address, and more. The only other such form in the file was signed by Flowers. 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. Both men bounced from one traumatic living arrangement to another with no respite. Before he disappeared into a men's bathroom, he once again dodged the question of where he was on the day of the murders and insulted two female reporters with vulgarities. 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. Burial will follow in Hemphill Star Cemetery, Boyce. 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. 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. It was still in the morning time.". 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. 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. 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. 20181228 Willie James Hemphill Criminal Civil Records Item Preview remove-circle Share or Embed This Item. He told the Commonwealth, I think these (APM Reports) folks are just coming up with anything they can to discredit the case. When reporters talked to Hemphill last year, he said investigators cleared him because he had an alibi he called it "airtight." 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. Who was he? 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. Visitation will be observed from 10:00 a.m. until the time of service. 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. 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. 5 Visits. Podcasts should stick to exonerating the innocent. Asked if she remembered where she was when the murders happened, she recalled the morning clearly. Find an Obituary . Prior to his death, Doyle came across as a passive man working hard to stay out of trouble. The funeral service will be 1pm Sunday at China Grove A.M.E. Zion Church. By licks he meant places to rob.. Maybe Doyle did the deed and reported his gun stolen to throw everyone off the scent. Historical Person Search Search Search Results Results willie james hemphill (1955 - 2006) Try FREE for 14 days Try FREE for 14 days. "False testimony is a corruption of the truth-finding process of a trial," Gershman said. But maybe she didnt see anyone at all. The ordeal of Curtis Flowers screams for correction. Miller would not comment. INDIANAPOLIS At first, Willie James Hemphill was calm. The criminals used a .380-caliber handgun that sometimes jammed. 0 Add Rating Anonymously. Between June 19th, 1996 and June 30thof that year, Presley was involved in five robberies at gunpoint. More: Curtis Flowers' prosecution witness says testimony was all 'make believe', More: Recanted testimony, subjective science helps put Curtis Flowers on death row, Supreme Court rules jury selection in Ga. trial unconstitutional. "You're confusing me. The district's Republicans should nominate James Hemphill as their candidate for Congress in the May 3 primary. And he was undeterred, at first, when he was told that Woods hadn't corroborated his story. Just after the murders, police arrested and jailed him as a suspect, but then let him go. 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. Each victim had been murdered execution styleone or two bullets to the back of the head. Menu. 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. But if Curtis Flowers doesnt get relief in the face of these well-publicized facts there will be hell to pay. 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. After the second stick up, the two men argued about whether they should have killed the witness. Six trials and six successful appeals. - Law enforcement had interviewed a different suspect with a violent criminal history, Willie James Hemphill - a fact which was not disclosed to the defense. 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. In a remarkable turn of events almost 23 years after four people, including a 16-year-old boy, were gunned down and left inside the Tardy Furniture store in Winona, Mississippi, three things have happened. In other words, Evans committed two egregiousBrady violations that will, in the days that lie ahead, force the courts to grant a new trial and, just as likely, insist that Doug Evans recuse himself from this case. 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. Green is a reporter in Toronto. Asked to clarify what he'd just said, Hemphill became agitated. Montgomery County Sheriff Bill Thornburg searched Moores home and found a size 10.5 Fila Grant Hill shoebox in a dresser at her house. (Although that figure is, at best, an educated guess.). 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. Yet theyre willing to hand him over to the prosecution, to possibly watch him die. The show has won rightful fame for its work helping to save Flowers life. ", "I was nowhere near the scene," he said. Photos. Grief Support. The answer was yes many, many times. 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.". Selected filmography. A series of Willie James Hemphill mugshots ranging from 2000 through 2016. When Jeffrey Armstrong heard his dog barking, he went outside tosee the reason for the commotion. The two men had family in both Boston and Norfolk. "I don't understand how she said that.". Willie James Hemphill didn't come up until the sixth Flowers trial, and law enforcement officers said he was eliminated as a suspect in about five minutes. In the months before the Tardy Furniture murders, Presley hit a grocery store, a fireworks retailer, three gas stations and three liquor stores. View Actual Score Check Background . Marcus Presley, the gunman in the Alabama crime spree, was staring up at Ali from among the six photos in the lineup. Presley and Gamble were extradited to Alabama, and again Gamble was questioned, almost in passing, about Mississippi. Goldberg couldn't tell whether he was telling the truth. Mississippi Smoldering: Tom Mangold reports on the Curtis Flowers case in 2009, Dwelling in a land of disbelief: My University Years . Hemphill said investigators tape recorded the interrogation and took notes, none of which was in the file given to Flowers defense attorneys. By the time Presley and Gamble were arrested, Doug Evans wasnt interested in alternative scenarios; he knew Curtis was the killer. 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. That day in October 2015, Ali was looking at a photo lineup that law enforcement had used to implicate Flowers in the Tardy case. Contact Jerry Mitchell at 601-961-7064 or jmitchell@gannett.com. 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. He spent 11 days in jail before authorities released him. 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. July 2, 2019 | by Parker Yesko and Dave Mann. He allegedly committed robberies to fund a drug habit. 704-***-**** View Phone. But that doesnt mean that he killed those four people at Tardy Furniture. Willie James Hemphill was born on May 27, 1919. 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. Both his father, Archie, and his sonbelieve he will be free one day. . "I can't recall seeing him that day," Woods said. Last month, the Supreme Court overturned Flowers latest conviction, citing In The Darks reporting. He told the podcast he had an airtight alibi. He thought back to when Small took the gun. The suspects include the gunman in an Alabama crime spree that summer that bore several similarities to the Winona killings and a violent career criminal who at the time of the murders was living with a girlfriend across from the furniture store. He didn't work on July 4, a holiday, and didn't show up for work on July 5, 6 or 8. So, if Curtis Flowers isnt guilty, who is? While Presley drove the action, Gamble kept his gun trained on the scene in case anyone tried to flee. Why was he questioned? The news was quickly followed by a shocking revelation in American Public Media podcast In The Dark. He allegedly stabbed a woman with a screwdriver, among other violent crimes. Sympathy Ideas. Passed away February 25, 2012. "Because once you get people on a roll to admitting to crimes, they just don't stop. "I was coming out of Piggly Wiggly and there was a woman, I will never forget her name. It was Geraldine. Store employees were threatened with death and forced to lie on the floor. 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. Can Marcus Presleys affidavit be trusted? Current Address: EHZR Hannah Dr, Rock Hill, SC. 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. As far as him telling me he killed some people, hell, naw, he aint ever told me that. The first of these events took place last month when the US Supreme Court tossed out Flowers conviction. We went to boot camp together., The officers denial dont make me mad, he said. It took the In the Dark team a full year to track Hemphill down in an Indianapolis courtroom (he's still getting into trouble). State investigator Matthews told the jury he didnt check Hemphills alibi, ruling him out by conversation alone. We know that Willie James Hemphill had been residing in Gaffney, Cherokee County, South Carolina 29341. They wanted to ask him about his alibi for the day of the Tardy Furniture murders, an alibi that hadn't checked out. EPISODE 16. 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.". Jessie Mae Hemphill [1]1923-2006 Blues musician, singer, songwriter, guitarist, percussionist Blues musician and vocalist Jessie Mae Hemphill [2] was a paradox. In addition, one jailhouse snitch has recanted, he said. The podcasts decision to try to figure out who may have actually committed the murders at the Tardy Furniture store in Winona, Mississippi isnt surprising. 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. 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. Only now, a new name has surfaced. In addition, he won an Emmy for the television show The West Wing.. 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. Surveillance video from John's 280 Pawn Shop broadcast by ABC News. 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. So, if I am forced to pick an alternative perpetrator in this awful case I would lean toward the Birmingham Boys, Presley in particular. Nor was there any record of the evidence gathered from Hemphill. You can send your sympathy in the guestbook provided and share it with the family. Willie James Hemphill was born on June 2, 1941. Although authorities quicklysettled on Flowers as their main suspect, he wasnt arrested until seven months later. 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. It wasnt until 2016 that defense lawyers took a closer look at Armstrongs statement that he found a .380 handgun. Following his release from prison in 2013,Hallmon tried to run over a Carroll County sheriff's deputy while escaping a drug bust. Soon that would change. Reporter: Were trying to puzzle through this. 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. But we found a document showing that another man, Willie James Hemphill, had also been questioned just days after the murders. OBITUARIES. Evans has spoken to the Greenwood Commonwealth, most recently about APM Reports analysis of his record of striking potential black jurors vs. white juries 4 1/2 times more often. He didnt bother anybody.. Flowers has remained imprisoned the entire time, for more than 20 years. His website is. Information APM Reports obtained from the Montgomery County Sheriffs Department through a public records request shows Hemphill was held for 11 days in jail. In loving memory of Willie Mae Hemphill who passed away February 25, 2012. Due to a planned power outage on Friday, 1/14, between 8am-1pm PST, some services may be impacted. Share to Tumblr. 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. The similarities between the crimes were striking. It would indeed have been a solid alibi except it didn't check out. Hemphill was held in jail for 11 days, according to county records, though it's not clear why he was held. Their reporters know better than anyone that Hemphill wouldnt get a fair trial. That might not be so if the whole world wasnt watching, but it is. If Gamble and McKenzie were in Mississippi the day of the Winona murders its very possible that Presley was with them. Records show he was questioned Hemphill said he was interrogated for hours and held for 11 days before being released. 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. How do we create a person's profile? A photo array that contains Marcus Presley (No. But Curtis Flowers is somehow still not cleared of the gruesome quadruple murder on July 16, 1996. 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. Judge Joseph Loper asked Evans if the state had any exculpatory evidence.. 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. Hemphill said investigators told him he was a suspect because witnesses had placed him on Front Street near Tardy Furniture Store on the morning of the murders and because of the kind of shoe he wore: Fila Grant Hills, the shoe investigators determined had made the bloody shoe prints inside the store. A surveillance camera revealed that the killer was wielding a 380 pistol that jammed repeatedly. 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. Back in 1996, there had even been speculation in the media that the crimes could be connected, and investigators had told the local paper they were looking into it. However, In the Dark's reporting has uncovered no clear evidence linking him to the Tardy murders. 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. Presley and Gamble did four of the June heists together and one crime was perpetrated by Presley alone. Willie Hemphill is 80 years old and was born on 04/13/1942. Maybe he and Doyle were co-perpetrators. They contained no mention of the Alabama suspects. Doyle, he said, used to work for Tardy Furniture.. They fell out and broke. "We did go to the mall, but it wasn't the day of the killing. Prosecutors have always said that Curtis Flowers was the only serious suspect in the Tardy Furniture investigation. While talking to them, he said he told them about his discovery. Evans didnt want jurors comparing his tortured theory with a simple and sensible alternative. ADVERTISEMENT BY ANCESTRY.COM. The fourth and fifth trials ended with hung juries. Username. "If he's guilty, he's guilty.". APM Reports recently interviewed a man named Willie James Hemphill, who said he was a suspect early in the investigation. One of them wore Grant Hill Fila sneakers. Armstrong questions whether Flowers could have carried out the killings of four people execution-style. My mom, my stepdad were afraid that, hey, if they're manhunting me like that, they may shoot me down in the street, Hemphill told them. That brings us to a theory that has been explored extensively by some of the folks currently representing Mr. During nearly 30 years of crimes, Willie James Hemphill has shown a quick temper, and a penchant for daytime robberies and violence against women. 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. Reporters spent months combing through police and court records in Mississippi, Tennessee and Indiana to compile his extensive, and at times violent, criminal history. He said he would have sent a written report back to Mississippi, so authorities there could check out the stories. On July 19, the Clarion Ledger did just that, finding wires, broken concrete blocks, parts of childrens toys and a plastic dog bone. He also tried to shoot his own 12-year-old son who was hiding in a closet, though the boy survived. Jessie Mae Hemphill; Jimmie Gordon; Jimmy "Duck" Holmes; Jimmy Burns; Jimmy Dawkins; Jimmy Holmes; Jimmy Johnson; . They didnt question him about other suspects or bring up Flowers name. 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. I was scared I was going to go to jail.. So, maybe Curtis didnt steal the gun after all. Reporters also poked holes in Hemphill . Injustice flourishes in the darkness, and the sun is now blazing in the heavens (at least for Curtis Flowers). Willie James Hemphill has lived in Evansville, IN 47714; Greenwood, MS 38930. Whoever did this crime (the Tardy murders) was a good shot.. "[I]t's almost like a hair trigger that would cause a reversal if you've got false testimony that is significant.". NEWS & ADVICE. Not long after Armstrong found the gun in October 2001, two police officers happened to pull him over for speeding. WIILIE HEMPHILL OBITUARY. James Mather is a British sound editor. District Attorney Doug Evans argues that Flowers, enraged with losing his job, stole a gun out of a parked car at the Angelica garment factory, cooled his heels at home for an hour or so, then marched to the furniture store with murder in his eye, did the foul deed, and raced home. Willie James Hemphill Willie Hemphill (1919 - 2000) Jump to: Bio graphy Family Photos Comments Obit uary. Willie Hemphill in Virginia. According to testimony in Flowers' first trial, authorities found $255 hidden in the headboard of Flowers' girlfriend. The Dallas Morning News. She said that investigators have never questioned her about Hemphill's story. Menu. 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. "Yeah we was leaving.
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