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In the Dark

Factual: Crime & Justice: True Crime

How can one man be tried six times for the same crime?

Curtis Flowers has been tried six times for the same crime. For more than 22 years, he’s maintained his innocence, winning appeal after appeal. But every time Flowers’ conviction has been reversed, the prosecutor tried the case again. Reporters from American Public Media spent two years investigating the Flowers case to find out what the evidence really shows, and why the same prosecutor has tried the case again and again.

In the Dark: July 16, 1996

Factual: Life Stories

Factual: Crime & Justice

27/07/2019 GMT

July 16, 1996

BBC World Service - In the Dark, July 16, 1996

Why has one man been tried six times for the same crime?

Why has one man been tried six times for the murders of four people in Mississippi in 1996?

On the morning of 16 July 1996, someone walked into a furniture store in downtown Winona, Mississippi, and murdered four employees. Each was shot in the head. It was perhaps the most shocking crime the small town had ever seen. 

The killings rattled residents, and the pressure on investigators to solve the crime was intense. But initially they had little to go on. No one witnessed the murders, and the crime scene offered only a few clues. After a few months, investigators charged a man named Curtis Flowers with the murders. At the time, he had no criminal record, and his only connection to the murders was that he’d worked at the furniture store for a few days that summer.    

What followed was a two-decade legal odyssey in which Flowers, who is black, was tried six times for the same crime – by the same prosecutor, a white man named Doug Evans. Flowers remains behind bars, though he’s maintained his innocence. 

Reporters from American Public Media spent two years digging into the Flowers case. They found a town divided by race, and a murder conviction supported by questionable evidence. 

Hosted and narrated by Madeleine Baran.

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July 16, 1996

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