UNLOCK PROFILE. But after several hours of interviews conducted over two days, Hemphill finally disclosed his alibi: He said he was at a mall in Memphis at the time of the murders, with a Winona woman named Twanda Woods. Mr. Willie James Hemphill, of 1119-101 Kevin Lane, died Thursday, November 9, 2017. 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. The podcast, which uncovered evidence used by Flowers to get his conviction overturned, spoke with witness Clemmie Fleming. Submit an Obituary. It wasn't that day." But maybe she didnt see anyone at all. That discovery will very likely win Curtis a new trial, but it doesnt necessarily finger the new guy as the killer. Obituaries Section. View contact information: phones, addresses, emails and networks. It might mean letting someone get away with an abominable crime. The host, Madeleine Baran, carefully noted that only some of evidence seemed to point in Hemphills direction, even though a flimsy case was enough to almost execute the man her show just found innocent. And the investigative file not shared with the defense showed investigators had considered Marcus Presley, the gunman in the murders and a string of similar crimes that same summer in neighboring Alabama. 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. Hemphill said he was wearing his Filas when in walked into the Sheriffs Department. Reporter: Were trying to puzzle through this. And so, in the corridors of the courthouse last week, a female journalist with In The Dark confronted Hemphill about his airtight alibi. There are 60+ professionals named "Willie Hemphill", who use LinkedIn to exchange information, ideas, and opportunities. At a hearing, the attorney generals office told the judge that prosecutors knew of no such gun. The ugly facts of Hemphills past werent ugly enough for the podcast In The Dark emphasized its clear disdain of him. Willie James Hemphill, Willie J Hemphill, Williae Hemphill. 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. It wasn't until Flowers' sixth trial that jurors heard anything about the Alabama suspects. "He would have just told me everything and anything at that point," Goldberg said. Matthews never responded. 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. He took the gun and placed it into a nearby shed. It happens. View Actual Score Check Background . The Dallas Morning News Homepage. 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. He said he told investigators he was shopping with a woman in Memphis. The accused has had his conviction overturned for the sixth time, the woman who put him at the scene of the murders has backflipped on her story and another man has been forced to deny it was him all along. Soon that would change. He said he would have sent a written report back to Mississippi, so authorities there could check out the stories. He didnt mark it or put it in an evidence bag, he told the Clarion Ledger. "False testimony is a corruption of the truth-finding process of a trial," Gershman said. The funeral service will be 1pm Sunday at China Grove A.M.E. Zion Church. This case was filed in U.S. Courts Of Appeals, U.S. Court Of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. Hallmon told APM Reports that he became a prosecution witness in spring 2001 after being arrested on multiple drug charges. A surveillance camera revealed that the killer was wielding a 380 pistol that jammed repeatedly. We know that Willie James Hemphill had been residing in Gaffney, Cherokee County, South Carolina 29341. He told the podcast he had an airtight alibi. Steven McKenzie, the driver of the getaway car in the pawn shop murders, was arrested on August 1 in his hometown of Boston, Massachusetts. Hemphill said investigator took his shoes for a few minutes as well as his fingerprints. 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 . Contacts (5) Locations (10) Family (3) Social (2) According to court records, he was "swinging a machete and causing a. Maybe Doyle did the deed and reported his gun stolen to throw everyone off the scent. There is little doubt that Hemphill has done terrible things. INDIANAPOLIS At first, Willie James Hemphill was calm. "They were investigating that intently back then. Willie Hemphill. 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. Find an Obituary. Willie James Hemphill; Willie James Hemphill, Age 44. aka Willie Jr Hemphill. Case Number : 20-11001. 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. Hemphill said investigators tape recorded the interrogation and took notes, none of which was in the file given to Flowers defense attorneys. Flowers parents have long believed in his innocence, visiting him in prison. Its almost impossible to not hate him and to believe he is guilty. They said they didnt have a case against me.. LOW HIGH. 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. Small is now claiming that I never gave (the gun) to him, Armstrong said. 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. It would indeed have been a solid alibi except it didn't check out. It takes no imagination at all to imagine Marcus Presley committing a crime like thatwe have the video from the pawn shop. 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. His website is. I dont think they learned anything.. If Flowers did what he is accused of doing, he deserves his punishment, Armstrong said. The weapon in at least some of the Alabama cases was a .380 handgun that tended to jam. They wanted to ask him about his alibi for the day of the Tardy Furniture murders, an alibi that hadn't checked out. 2. "Best I remember is somebody brought it to the attention of the investigators that they wanted us to talk to him, and he came in and we talked to him," Matthews said on the stand in the sixth trial. Add a Memory. We collect and match historical records that Ancestry users have contributed to their family trees to create each person's profile. Jessie Mae Hemphill [1]1923-2006 Blues musician, singer, songwriter, guitarist, percussionist Blues musician and vocalist Jessie Mae Hemphill [2] was a paradox. Asked to clarify what he'd just said, Hemphill became agitated. Find out more about our policy and your choices, including how to opt-out. Past Addresses: Shelby NC, Shelby NC +7 more. Right now, Willie Hemphill lives in Rock Hill, SC. Wiilie Hemphill passed away in Bryan, Texas. Hemphills name came up briefly in Flowers 2010 trial. View Tommy Hemphill results including current phone number, address, relatives, background check report, and property record with Whitepages. But we found a document showing that another man, Willie James Hemphill, had also been questioned just days after the murders. December 6, 1948 August 11, 2018. According to testimony in Flowers' first trial, authorities found $255 hidden in the headboard of Flowers' girlfriend. Share to Tumblr. 1.58 3.33 /5. Miller also asked the investigator to interrogate Presley and Gamble about the Tardy Furniture murders. But there was no mention of the Alabama crimes and suspects in the investigative files the prosecution had turned over to Flowers' defense attorneys. INDIANAPOLIS At first, Willie James Hemphill was calm. But attempting to deliver another black man into that same system goes against its good work. Law enforcement clearly saw Hemphill as a prime suspect. If youve listened toIn the Darkor watchedWrong Manon the Starz channel, you either came away convinced that Curtis Flowers didnt kill four people in cold blood back in 1996 or you werent paying attention. Law enforcement had interviewed a different suspect with a violent criminal history, Willie James Hemphill a fact which was not disclosed to the defense. Eight persons linked to this address. At first he was reluctant to divulge who he was with that morning, but later said it was a woman named Twanda Woods. US States (36975K) Current Events (51K) Celebrity (272) Exonerated (117) Favorites (421) FBI Most Wanted (848) Gangsters (49) Historical (131) Interpol (1.7K) . Whoever did this crime (the Tardy murders) was a good shot.. When we finally found Hemphill, living in Indianapolis, he had some very surprising things to say about the case . The FBI checked it out. In the 1980s and '90s, Hemphill spent time in Memphis. According to Yesko and Mann (2019), Hemphill dropped out of high school and was living back and forth from his mother's house to his grandmother's. The fourth and fifth trials ended with hung juries. "Because once you get people on a roll to admitting to crimes, they just don't stop. Evidence suggests that Marcus Presley was a psychopath who enjoyed random violence for its own sake. Passed away February 25, 2012. 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. Green is a reporter in Toronto. He testified in multiple trials that the other images in the photo lineup were just "filler pictures," chosen "at random" based on some resemblance to Flowers. 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.. Information APM Reports obtained from the Montgomery County Sheriffs Department through a public records request shows Hemphill was held for 11 days in jail. On July 19, the Clarion Ledger did just that, finding wires, broken concrete blocks, parts of childrens toys and a plastic dog bone. In October 2015, some 20 years after the murders, Katie Ali, one of Flowers attorneys in his appeal, recognized him in the photo lineup law enforcement used to implicate Flowers: In those Alabama crimes, store employees were shot execution-style with a .380 handgun the same type weapon used in the Tardy Furniture Store killings that might have jammed, and a suspect was wearing Fila shoes the same type shoe found from a bloody shoe print at the scene. 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. Illuminating Journalism from American Public Media. Miller would not comment. When we finally found Hemphill, living in Indianapolis, he had some very surprising things to say about the case. He died on May 27, 2008 at age 66. (1870), A.M. (1872), and LL.D. - Law enforcement had interviewed a different suspect with a violent criminal history, Willie James Hemphill - a fact which was not disclosed to the defense. 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. Selected filmography. In addition, he won an Emmy for the television show The West Wing.. But that doesnt make Doyle a cold killer. Police received a call about the murders at 10:21 a.m. On 03/12/2020 Willie Hemphill filed a Prisoner - Other Prisoner lawsuit against Warden. It took the In the Dark team a full year to track Hemphill down in an Indianapolis courtroom (he's still getting into trouble). But he believed Gamble's denial. Before he left on July 3, he said she gave him $30. 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). ADVERTISEMENT BY ANCESTRY.COM. Are you a sl*t? (Page 3) But his demeanor when approached by In the Dark investigative reporters was consistent with innocence. "I don't understand how she said that.". As far as him telling me he killed some people, hell, naw, he aint ever told me that. William is related to Alicia Kristen Hemphill . <a . WrongManleans tentatively fingers Doyle Simpson as the prime suspect. Miller, the Mississippi investigator who made the lineup and asked for the two to be interrogated, declined to answer questions from APM Reports. Willie Hemphill Found 194 people in Mississippi, Illinois and 31 other states. I was scared I was going to go to jail.. He also tried to shoot his own 12-year-old son who was hiding in a closet, though the boy survived. Due to a planned power outage on Friday, 1/14, between 8am-1pm PST, some services may be impacted. They contained no mention of the Alabama suspects. Eight days before these murders, a side door key was stolen. And Hemphill had actually lived for a time in Winona. The Dallas Morning News. 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. Willie Ray Hemphill, Jr., 49, of Bryan, passed away Thursday, August 13, 2009 at his residence. Presley wasnt the only suspect defense attorneys didnt know investigators had seriously considered. 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. 5 Visits. Search by Name. A Hearing. The second best result is William E Hemphill Sr . Surveillance video from John's 280 Pawn Shop broadcast by ABC News. 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. No one was going to all that trouble over the approximately $400 investigators say was in the till that morning.