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. 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. He was born on December 6, 1948 in Weir, Mississippi the son of Eddie Allen and Garner Lee Edwards Hemphill. 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). 704-***-**** View Phone. Both men bounced from one traumatic living arrangement to another with no respite. His website is. July 2, 2019 | by Parker Yesko and Dave Mann. Are you a sl*t? 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. No one was going to all that trouble over the approximately $400 investigators say was in the till that morning. Information APM Reports obtained from the Montgomery County Sheriffs Department through a public records request shows Hemphill was held for 11 days in jail. Sure, onceIn the Dark is over the heat will diminish slightly. Eight persons linked to this address. 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. Submit an Obituary. INDIANAPOLIS At first, Willie James Hemphill was calm. 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. Investigators John Johnson and Jack Matthews denied on the stand knowing anything about them. The Dallas Morning News. In the sixth, he was again convicted and sentenced to death, and his latest appeal was ongoing when the podcast started. January 5, 1960 - August 13, 2009. 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. 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. His misdeeds, while abhorrent, are also likely inseparable from his decades-long history of poverty and addiction. 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. And in searching for Hemphill, she came upon a cousin with the same name who recalled three carloads of deputies showing up at his mobile home in 1996 looking for the other Hemphill. Me and her was leaving," he said, forfeiting his Memphis alibi altogether and placing himself a short walk from Tardy Furniture. (Page 3) He will be held in a county jail while its decided if he should face trial for a stunning seventh time. Hallmon is now serving three life sentences in Parchmanwithout the possibility of parole. By licks he meant places to rob.. Willie Hemphill is 80 years old and was born on 04/13/1942. Their reporters know better than anyone that Hemphill wouldnt get a fair trial. 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. (Although that figure is, at best, an educated guess.). Baran found Hemphills booking card showing he had been arrested and jailed a few days after the killing. He took the gun and placed it into a nearby shed. Podcasts should stick to exonerating the innocent. "I haven't heard anything about them," John Johnson, the investigator for the District Attorney's office, had said when questioned about the Alabama suspects at the sixth Flowers trial. Menu. 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. Selected filmography. Saums believes whoever carried out the crime had inside information. "The best of my recollection, Mississippi was able to determine that our guys weren't the ones, or there was something that didn't make them right for the Mississippi case," said Mike DeHart, the Alabama sheriff's deputy who questioned Gamble. The two of them walked the same school halls from first grade through high school, he said. He didn't work on July 4, a holiday, and didn't show up for work on July 5, 6 or 8. Menu. 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. Willie James Hemphill; Willie James Hemphill, Age 44. aka Willie Jr Hemphill. 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. Hemphill said investigator took his shoes for a few minutes as well as his fingerprints. 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. And Hemphill had actually lived for a time in Winona. After the second stick up, the two men argued about whether they should have killed the witness. I dont think they learned anything.. But instead of stopping there, its reporters started snitching to the same system whose injustice they had just unmasked. The second best result is William E Hemphill Sr . Willie James Hemphill was born on June 2, 1941. You may also light a candle in honor of Willie James . Mississippi Smoldering: Tom Mangold reports on the Curtis Flowers case in 2009, Dwelling in a land of disbelief: My University Years . That same day, Horace Wayne Miller, a lieutenant with the Mississippi Highway patrol, asked Norfolk officials to keep him apprised of their investigation. Because Mr. Evans didnt tell them about the Alabama connection. Whoever killed the four victims in Winona was beset by demons. Maybe theyll cover that in their next season. 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. Search by Name. It was his legal obligation, but its easy to see why he didnt. Injustice flourishes in the darkness, and the sun is now blazing in the heavens (at least for Curtis Flowers). She said that investigators have never questioned her about Hemphill's story. It was all make believe. 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. 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. And the gun that Armstrong says he discovered is additionally important . As far as him telling me he killed some people, hell, naw, he aint ever told me that. 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. Burial will be at Barber Memorial Cemetery He wouldnt have had the (mental) capability, he said. And he was undeterred, at first, when he was told that Woods hadn't corroborated his story. It wasnt until 2016 that defense lawyers took a closer look at Armstrongs statement that he found a .380 handgun. 0 Reputation Score Range. They didnt question him about other suspects or bring up Flowers name. The police there picked up the investigation and also apparently probed the Tardy Furniture connection. 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. The answer was yes many, many times. 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. 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. Updated: June 22, 2016 . View Actual Score Check Background . 1809 Gatewood Aven, Greensboro, NC 27405-6727 is the last known address for Willie. They found out later that Flowers uncle, Doyle Simpson, said his .380 automatic had been stolen from the glove box of his car parked at the Angelica Garment Factory where he worked. He died on May 27, 2008 at age 66. Yes and no. NEWSPAPERS. Asked to clarify what he'd just said, Hemphill became agitated. AVERAGE AGE. Between June 19th, 1996 and June 30thof that year, Presley was involved in five robberies at gunpoint. FUNERAL HOMES. When we finally found Hemphill, living in Indianapolis, he had some very surprising things to say about the case. And there he was. 4). In the 1980s and '90s, Hemphill spent time in Memphis. Now the spotlight is on three other deaths that are linked to the case. Are you a wh*re?, Reporter: Did you commit the murders on Front Street? "If he's guilty, he's guilty.". Free this man. The killer or killers could have used the key to enter the side door, perhaps hiding before the store opened. During nearly 30 years of crimes, he's shown a quick temper, and a penchant for daytime robberies and violence against women. 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. He allegedly committed robberies to fund a drug habit. Again, he denied ever being there. "I was coming out of Piggly Wiggly and there was a woman, I will never forget her name. Hallmon has since admitted he lied. 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. We have lots of information about Willie: religious views are listed as Christian . 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. For Flowers, the new information including Flemings changed story adds weight to his case for a full acquittal. According to court records, he was "swinging a machete and causing a. View contact information: phones, addresses, emails and networks. The funeral service will be 1pm Sunday at China Grove A.M.E. Zion Church. 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. LAYTON - Willie Morris Hemphill, 69, passed away August 11, 2018 at St. Mark's Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. 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. Green is a reporter in Toronto. He thought back to when Small took the gun. He said he began working at Tardy Furniture on June 29, 1996. In the sixth trial, inmate Odell Hallmon testified that Flowers told him about carrying out the Tardy murders, helping lead to Flowers conviction. Matthews never responded. 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. 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. Wiilie Hemphill passed away in Bryan, Texas. 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. Law enforcement witnesses had testified under oath in Flowers sixth trial that Presley was never a suspect. Where were you?, Hemphill: I was in your p***y. Willie James Hemphill is confronted by reporters at an Indianapolis courthouse in June 2019. NEWS & ADVICE. 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. A witness whose statement put a man on death row for 22 years has performed a remarkable backflip, turning a case on its head. On July 19, the Clarion Ledger did just that, finding wires, broken concrete blocks, parts of childrens toys and a plastic dog bone. The show revealed that the district attorneys office bullied and threatened people into lying on the witness stand. 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. UNLOCK PROFILE. . At the time, investigators in Mississippi told the media they were looking into whether the crimes could be connected to the murders at Tardy Furniture. Could those responsible for Tardy Furniture murders have escaped a different way? Share to Reddit. Explosive end to case thats rocked America. Police arrived at the factory and interviewed employee Katherine Snow. 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. Historical Person Search Search Search Results Results Willie James Hemphill (1952 - 2006) Try FREE for 14 days Try FREE for 14 days. Flowers through six trials present Presley and Gamble as an alternative theory of the crime? The show has won rightful fame for its work helping to save Flowers life. Select this result to view William Thomas Hemphill's phone number, address, and more. The case status is Pending - Other Pending. 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. Their names are Michael Lee Boies , Crystal Davis , and six others. 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. 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 Dallas Morning News Homepage. That discovery will very likely win Curtis a new trial, but it doesnt necessarily finger the new guy as the killer. 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. Name. Fourteen lawyers. At first he was reluctant to divulge who he was with that morning, but later said it was a woman named Twanda Woods. He died on July 14, 2000 at age 81. 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. 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. "Yeah we was leaving. Visitation will be 10 a.m. to 7 p.m . . Hallmon told APM Reports that he became a prosecution witness in spring 2001 after being arrested on multiple drug charges. Record that.. 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 The FBI checked it out. 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. And Hemphill had a history of committing crimes in Winona and Memphis. … Ive had many trials where no black jurors were struck., But the Mississippi Supreme Court overturned Flowers conviction in his third trial, ruling Evans had intentionally struck African Americans from the jury. And Hemphill had actually lived for a time in Winona. In loving memory of Willie Mae Hemphill who passed away February 25, 2012. Prosecutors have always said that Curtis Flowers was the only serious suspect in the Tardy Furniture investigation. His age is 79. It wasn't until Flowers' sixth trial that jurors heard anything about the Alabama suspects. Search by Name. Goldberg couldn't tell whether he was telling the truth. What are we supposed to think? A series of Willie James Hemphill mugshots ranging from 2000 through 2016. 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. In 1996, Mississippi investigators told the local paper they were looking into a possible connection. Burial will follow in Hemphill Star Cemetery, Boyce. A series of Willie James Hemphill mugshots ranging from 2000 through 2016. 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. His father had, for just a few months, been the first sheriff in the county, but returned to farming his land. Due to a planned power outage on Friday, 1/14, between 8am-1pm PST, some services may be impacted. Presley and Gamble had developed a simplemodus operandi. 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. But if Curtis Flowers doesnt get relief in the face of these well-publicized facts there will be hell to pay. Case Details. 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 didn't come up until the sixth Flowers trial, and law enforcement officers said he was eliminated as a suspect in about five minutes. Presley and Gamble were extradited to Alabama, and again Gamble was questioned, almost in passing, about Mississippi. Montgomery County Sheriff Bill Thornburg searched Moores home and found a size 10.5 Fila Grant Hill shoebox in a dresser at her house. The Dallas Morning News. Just weeks ago, however, reporters discovered that Hemphill had an upcoming court date in Indianapolis and met him there. 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. Statistics for all 30 William Hemphill results: 68 yrs. One of them wore Grant Hill Fila sneakers. Quantico . The Tardy murders took place during a 24-day gap when the group carried out no robberies in Alabama. Hemphill also wasnt held briefly. 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. SEND FLOWERS. Current Address: EHZR Hannah Dr, Rock Hill, SC. The weapon in at least some of the Alabama cases was a .380 handgun that tended to jam. Willie Hemphill. Just after the murders, police arrested and jailed him as a suspect, but then let him go. Share Obituary. But attempting to deliver another black man into that same system goes against its good work. He allegedly committed robberies to fund a drug habit. 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. Willie James Hemphill in Georgia Fulton County arrested for U/S VGCSA POSS* BLOG; CATEGORIES. Later, he said, one of the officers, Vince Small, came by, and he handed the officer the gun. They wanted to ask him about his alibi for the day of the Tardy Furniture murders, an alibi that hadn't checked out. That was a lie, Hallmon told APM Reports in an interview on a contraband cellphone from his prison cell. He told APM Reports that he was arrested and questioned in the . Marcus Presley sometimes accompanied by LaSamuel Gamble had committed a string of robberies in 1996 in and around Birmingham, with the same modus operandi. The answer was yes many, many times. If it hadnt been for a single slip of paper in the prosecutors file with Willie James Hemphills name on it, theIn the Dark squad wouldnt have known about the man. 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. Submit an Obituary. Whoever did this crime (the Tardy murders) was a good shot.. 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. I knew his sisters, I knew his brother, he said. Nine days later, on July 25, 1996, the bodies of two innocent people were discovered in a pawn shop in Birmingham, Alabama. And that omission, a law professor and former prosecutor told the team, could mean a seventh new trial for Flowers, condemined to death for the murders of four people at Tardy Furniture Store. So, if Curtis didnt do this terrible deed, who did? More importantly, Woods said she was certain that she didn't make the trip with Hemphill that day.