‘Keep Your Head Up and Don’t Give Up’ — Exoneree Curtis Flowers Gives an Illuminating First Interview to the In the Dark Podcast

In his first inter­view since his September 24, 2020 exon­er­a­tion, for­mer Mississippi death-row pris­on­er Curtis Flowers (pic­tured) spoke with In the Dark pod­cast host and lead reporter Madeleine Baran about his 24-year jour­ney to free­dom after hav­ing being framed, tried six times, sent to death row and final­ly freed for a mur­der every­one involved knew full well he had never committed. 

In an inter­view that aired October 14, 2020, Flowers said he sur­vived the ordeal with the unbend­ing sup­port of his fam­i­ly. He drew strength from his moth­er, who told him: ​“Keep your head up and don’t give up. We all know it’s a lie. You know it’s a lie. Everyone you know knows it’s a lie. … [D]on’t give up.” 

Flowers was tried six times by District Attorney Doug Evans for a quadru­ple mur­der at the Tardy Furniture store in Winona, Mississippi before the Mississippi Attorney General’s office final­ly agreed to drop all charges against him. He was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death four times, with two mis­tri­als in between, and each con­vic­tion was over­turned as a result of dif­fer­ent acts of mis­con­duct by Evans. 

Evans, who is unlike­ly to face dis­ci­pline for his mis­con­duct, pre­sent­ed tes­ti­mo­ny from the like­ly killer false­ly impli­cat­ing Flowers, pres­sured oth­er wit­ness­es into false­ly tes­ti­fy­ing, and repeat­ed­ly uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly struck Black jurors in an effort to impan­el all-white or near­ly all-white juries to deter­mine Flowers’ fate. In June 2019, after the Mississippi Supreme Court had upheld the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence in his sixth tri­al, the U.S. Supreme Court vacat­ed Flowers’ con­vic­tion because of Evans’ ​“relent­less, deter­mined effort to rid the jury of black indi­vid­u­als.” That rul­ing paved the way for Flowers’ freedom.

Asked by Baran where he wants to be in the future, Flowers said: ​“Just want to do bet­ter. Getting up there in age, so I need to find out what Curtis want to be and just try to live life. So, I’m look­ing for­ward to that.

“It worked out. Here I am.”

After six tri­als, Flowers got a major break when American Public Media’s In the Dark pod­cast began inves­ti­gat­ing his case. The pod­cast devel­oped evi­dence that pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness Doyle Simpson was the like­ly killer and that jail­house infor­mant Odell Hallmon had lied when he tes­ti­fied that Flowers had con­fessed to him. Baran’s inter­view with Flowers pro­duced even more strik­ing evi­dence of offi­cial mis­con­duct that had not been previously known.

The fur­ni­ture store mur­ders were com­mit­ted with a gun owned by Doyle Simpson, who claimed it had been stolen from his car the morn­ing of the killings. Later, police showed up at Flowers’ house and brought him to the police sta­tion for ques­tion­ing. The dis­trict attorney’s inves­ti­ga­tor, John Johnson, ​“made it sound sweet,” Flowers recalled. “’He said, ​‘nobody’s accus­ing you of any­thing. We just want to talk to you briefly. Maybe you can help us.’” After the inter­view was done, “[t]hey didn’t even take me back home,” Flowers said. ​“I had to walk.” When he arrived home, a neigh­bor told him that Johnson and sev­er­al oth­er inves­ti­ga­tors had can­vassed the neigh­bor­hood ask­ing about Flowers and describ­ing him as a sus­pect in the murder. 

Several months lat­er, Flowers told Baran, he was offered free­dom from pros­e­cu­tion in exchange for false­ly tes­ti­fy­ing against Simpson. Flowers said he was talk­ing with Sheriff Robert Tomkins when Tomkins said, “‘Let me tell you some­thing. Doug [Evans] is look­ing for some­one to put this on.’ He said, ​‘There’s no doubt in my mind, I don’t believe you did this. … But they got Doyle where they want him because, you know, he owned the gun, he real­ly don’t have no con­crete ali­bi about where he was.’ And he said, ​‘they got Doyle scared. Doyle is will­ing to say he believe you did it and they will use him any way they can.’” 

Tompkins then told Flowers, “‘Now, if you would speak and tes­ti­fy against Doyle Simpson, you’d be alright.’” Flowers said, ​“I can­not say that man did this. I don’t know,” to which Tompkins replied, “‘He’s will­ing to say you did it.’” Flowers said he told Tompkins ​“Two wrongs don’t make a right. … I was raised bet­ter than that.”

At tri­al, as the pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness­es pre­sent­ed false tes­ti­mo­ny against him, Flowers recalls think­ing ​“I don’t under­stand why peo­ple would just go and lie like this, to take the wit­ness stand and just flat out tell a lie. … It was hard to sit there and just hear things and not be able to say a thing.” Nonetheless, he thought he would be acquit­ted. When the jury ver­dict was announced, ​“I didn’t see it com­ing at all,” he said. 

That feel­ing was dwarfed by the jury’s rec­om­men­da­tion that he be sen­tenced to death. ​“I can’t even describe the feel­ing to you,” he told Baran. ​“It was like hav­ing the air sucked out of you. You can’t breathe. I felt relieved to get out of the court­room back to the hold­ing cell where I could just sit for a minute. I just couldn’t believe it.”

Baran and Flowers dis­cuss the hor­rif­ic con­di­tions on Mississippi’s death row, Flowers’ expe­ri­ence of watch­ing oth­er death-row pris­on­ers emo­tion­al­ly decom­pen­sate, com­mit sui­cide, and be exe­cut­ed, and the heart wrench­ing death of Flowers’ moth­er short­ly before the In the Dark pod­cast began its broad­casts about the case. ​“My mom, she is my rock,” Flowers said. As the final stages of his case played out, ​“I just kept talk­ing with fam­i­ly and just wait­ed.” He recalled that ​“my mom always used to say, ​‘You done come this far, you can­not give up now.’ She said, ​‘Don’t roll over and take what­ev­er they’re throw­ing at you. Don’t set­tle.’ And I just kept fighting.” 

Flowers will be fil­ing a claim with the state of Mississippi seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion for his wrong­ful impris­on­ment. Mississippi law per­mits com­pen­sa­tion of $50,000 per year of impris­on­ment, with a cap of $500,000 total. Exoneration does not auto­mat­i­cal­ly result in com­pen­sa­tion. To suc­ceed on his claim, Flowers must per­suade state author­i­ties to agree that he did not com­mit the mur­ders for which he was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death.