Willie Hemphill is 80 years old and was born on 04/13/1942. Evidence of false testimony by prosecution witnesses could potentially get Flowers' conviction overturned, Bennett Gershman, a former prosecutor who now teaches law at Pace University, told the APM reporting team. Quantico National Cemetery. In 1996, Mississippi investigators told the local paper they were looking into a possible connection. It might mean letting someone get away with an abominable crime. Me and Twanda was out of town," he said. Willie James Hemphill, Willie J Hemphill, Williae Hemphill. Who was he? Prosecutors claimed Flowers wore a size 10.5 shoe, and a state expert testified that the 10.5 size was consistent with the bloody footprints. After finding the weapon, Armstrong wondered how the gun had wound up under the house his mother was renting on Knox Street, only 700 feet or so from the furniture store. 0 Reputation Score Range. Yet despite a number of theft and drug charges, probation violations, at least four domestic violence convictions and a girlfriend who alleges he stabbed her 13 times Hemphill has managed to avoid a long stint in prison. His alibi is weak, according to In The Dark. Each victim of the July 16, 1996 murders was murdered execution styleone or two bullets to the back of the head. Curtis Flowers on death row: Missing gun, more questions about evidence 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 Dark has previously reported that Hemphill was an initial suspect in the days after the July 1996 murders in Winona, Mississippi. Right now, Willie Hemphill lives in Rock Hill, SC. According to the ledger, about$287 was missing from the cash drawer the morning of the murders. Hemphill was born on September 10, 1971. What an Alabama crime spree might reveal about the Curtis Flowers investigation. Investigators said the Simpson brothers were eliminated quickly because they were both at work at the time of the murders. He will be held in a county jail while its decided if he should face trial for a stunning seventh time. 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 And why didnt DA Doug Evans even consider the Presley-Gamble connection? Hemphill said investigators tape recorded the interrogation and took notes, none of which was in the file given to Flowers defense attorneys. S2 E10: Discovery - In the Dark | iHeart That brings us to a theory that has been explored extensively by some of the folks currently representing Mr. The weapon in at least some of the Alabama cases was a .380 handgun that tended to jam. Robert Reid Hemphill's brother, James Calvin Hemphill, was born in Due West, South Carolina, on May 18, 1850. In The Darks reporting on the case documented the inequities and outright barbarism of Mississippis criminal justice system. Miller also asked the investigator to interrogate Presley and Gamble about the Tardy Furniture murders. He allegedly stabbed a woman with a screwdriver, among other violent crimes. Gamble never discharged his weapon. Saums believes whoever carried out the crime had inside information. Statistics for all 30 William Hemphill results: 68 yrs. LOW HIGH. INDIANAPOLIS At first, Willie James Hemphill was calm. 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. Willie James Hemphill; Willie James Hemphill, Age 44. aka Willie Jr Hemphill. Willie James Hemphill, Greensboro Public Records Instantly There is little doubt that Hemphill has done terrible things. 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. Menu. LOW HIGH. Willie James Hemphill Birth 27 May 1919 Death 14 Jul 2000 (aged 81) Burial. And Hemphill had actually lived for a time in Winona. Fourteen lawyers. Search by Name. Inside the store, authorities discovered bloody footprints left behind by a Grant Hill Fila basketball shoe. Evans didnt want jurors comparing his tortured theory with a simple and sensible alternative. 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. Information APM Reports obtained from the Montgomery County Sheriffs Department through a public records request shows Hemphill was held for 11 days in jail. Share to Reddit. Curtis Flowers was raised in a loving home by a gospel-singing father and a mother known for her culinary and entrepreneurial abilities. 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. WIILIE HEMPHILL OBITUARY. It was a .380-caliber automatic handgun, coated in dirt and rust. His age is 79. Marcus Presley, the gunman in the Alabama crime spree, was staring up at Ali from among the six photos in the lineup. Curtis Flowers: Were there two other suspects in Winona, MS, murders? Willie Smith in Kingwood, TX - Address & Phone Number | Whitepages "We did go to the mall, but it wasn't the day of the killing. Presley was the tougher of the two, and he didn't say much. Hemphill, Willie Mae Willie Mae Hemphill, Born March 8, 1926. Who was he? In fact, he said, police never searched the crawl space beneath the house. 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. "Because once you get people on a roll to admitting to crimes, they just don't stop. Hemphill's Timeline Willie James Hemphill has an extensive criminal record starting in 1990, just when Hemphill was eighteen-years old. The Dallas Morning News Homepage. Willie James Hemphill was born on May 27, 1919. Name. Willie Hemphill Obituary (2017) - Rock Hill, SC - The Herald - Legacy.com This narrative turn places In The Dark firmly, disappointingly, and alarmingly in the mainstream of the True Crime genre. 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. Gamble told me that they saw a few licks while they were in Mississippi. "I think we pretty much ruled him out from the get-go," Matthews testified. Contact Jerry Mitchell at 601-961-7064 or jmitchell@gannett.com. Hallmon has since admitted he lied. Visitation will be observed from 10:00 a.m. until the time of service. But that doesnt mean that he killed those four people at Tardy Furniture. He told the Commonwealth, I think these (APM Reports) folks are just coming up with anything they can to discredit the case. The justices wrote that it was as strong a prima facie case of racial discrimination as we have ever seen in the context of a Batson challenge. Visitation will be 10 a.m. to 7 p.m . Burial will follow in Hemphill Star Cemetery, Boyce. In The Dark was clearly righteous in exonerating a black man condemned by a ludicrously unjust system. When Baran and her producer eventually tracked down the right Hemphill, he told them, Yeah, they actually had me as a suspect in that.. . 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. Surveillance video from John's 280 Pawn Shop broadcast by ABC News. Although authorities quicklysettled on Flowers as their main suspect, he wasnt arrested until seven months later. Prior to his death, Doyle came across as a passive man working hard to stay out of trouble. You can send your sympathy in the guestbook provided and share it with the family. He said he told investigators he was shopping with a woman in Memphis. Willie Hemphill's passing at the age of 97 has been publicly announced by Arnold Family Funeral Services Inc. - Hillside Chapel in Altadena, CA.Legacy invites you to offer condolences and share memori Fleming had said six times since 1996 she saw Flowers running from the store on the morning of the murders. Share to Twitter. Also known as Willie L Hemphill, Hemphill Wilie. 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. Police arrived at the factory and interviewed employee Katherine Snow. Born in 2 Jun 1941 and died in 27 May 2008 Gaffney, South Carolina Willie James Hemphill The suspicion that the crimes could be connected was a matter of public record at the time. Willie James Hemphill 1952-2006 - Ancestry It was still in the morning time.". The Tardy murders took place during a 24-day gap when the group carried out no robberies in Alabama. Saums pointed out that Simpson who has since died lied to police about how he had gotten the gun. And Gamble wore Fila sneakers the same brand of shoe that left a bloody footprint at the Tardy Furniture scene. When we finally found Hemphill, living in Indianapolis, he had some very surprising things to say about the case. Even before finding the gun, Armstrong had doubts about whether Flowers played a role in the quadruple murder. 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. Case Number : 20-11001. 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. Eight days before these murders, a side door key was stolen. Are you a sl*t? Jurors at Flowers trials had only heard of one suspect who could have worn Fila Grant Hills Flowers although investigators never found the shoes they said he wore. If the state Supreme Court were to order a seventh trial for Flowers, the district attorney would face a difficult task, Saums said. Willie Hemphill. They have also lived in Franklin, NC and North Fort Myers, FL. As far as him telling me he killed some people, hell, naw, he aint ever told me that. How do we create a person's profile? WrongManleans tentatively fingers Doyle Simpson as the prime suspect. 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. Ive been confused of the day from the beginning. Flowers, the individuals I reference as the Birmingham boys. The day in photos. 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. Quantico . Not the right Willie? He told us the truth … The statement that he gave in court I made sure was the truth before we used it.. Flowers, who had been fired from the store 13 days before the murders, reportedly owed a small amount of money to one of the owners. But that doesnt make Doyle a cold killer. Submit an Obituary. War of 1812 Discharge Certificates | National Archives And Hemphill had a history of committing crimes in Winona and Memphis. 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. 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. A series of Willie James Hemphill mugshots ranging from 2000 through 2016. He died on May 27, 2008 at age 66. SEND FLOWERS. Since police, sheriff's deputies, jailers and highway patrol investigators work for the state, if they turn up anything that casts doubt on the defendant's guilt, the prosecutor must hand it over to the defense. By his own account, someone told investigators that they'd seen him on Front Street that morning, though Hemphill has said repeatedly that he wasn't there. "They were investigating that intently back then. He also tried to shoot his own 12-year-old son who was hiding in a closet, though the boy survived. In the sixth, he was again convicted and sentenced to death, and his latest appeal was ongoing when the podcast started. Willie James Hemphill has lived in Evansville, IN 47714; Greenwood, MS 38930. Why was he questioned? He said he knew nothing about the burglary. Because Mr. Evans didnt tell them about the Alabama connection. 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). "I can't recall seeing him that day," Woods said. 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.. 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. (Although that figure is, at best, an educated guess.). William Hemphill in Tennessee - Spokeo Willie James Hemphill (1941 - 2008) - Gaffney, South Carolina We collect and match historical records that Ancestry users have contributed to their family trees to create each person's profile. Their reporters know better than anyone that Hemphill wouldnt get a fair trial. Willie Hemphill Found 194 people in Mississippi, Illinois and 31 other states. "False testimony is a corruption of the truth-finding process of a trial," Gershman said. The case status is Pending - Other Pending. Marcus Presley sometimes accompanied by LaSamuel Gamble had committed a string of robberies in 1996 in and around Birmingham, with the same modus operandi. It happens. Podcasts should stick to exonerating the innocent. The police there picked up the investigation and also apparently probed the Tardy Furniture connection. And then Hemphill stormed off, ending the interview. A photo array that contains Marcus Presley (No. Three of the four were each killed with a single head shot. Willie James Hemphill Criminal & Civil Records : Free Download, Borrow 20181228 Willie James Hemphill Criminal Civil Records Item Preview remove-circle Share or Embed This Item. "I was coming out of Piggly Wiggly and there was a woman, I will never forget her name. . Six trials and six successful appeals. Flowers through six trials present Presley and Gamble as an alternative theory of the crime? The ugly facts of Hemphills past werent ugly enough for the podcast In The Dark emphasized its clear disdain of him. The answer was yes many, many times. Explosive end to case thats rocked America. Resides in Greenwood, MS. In a sworn statement, one of those criminals, Marcus Pressley, told Flowers' lawyers thattwo of his accomplices in the Alabama crimes were in Mississippi at the time of the Tardy murders. July 2, 2019 | by Parker Yesko and Dave Mann. Hours after the killings, authorities interviewed Flowers, who said he had been babysitting the children of his girlfriend, Connie Moore, and also gone to his sister's home and a nearby store. Afraid that he would be shot on sight if he didnt surrender, Hemphill turned himself in at the local police station (wearing Grant Hill Filas, the shoes investigators had linked to a bloody footprint at the crime scene) and was immediately handcuffed and booked into the local lock-up. Shortly after the killings, police arrested Hemphill, then 24, who was wearing a pair of the Grant Hill Fila shoes. But perhaps the most intriguing new development is the emergence of a man who verbally attacked journalists on the podcast while denying he was in town on the day of the murders. 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. Due to a planned power outage on Friday, 1/14, between 8am-1pm PST, some services may be impacted. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark. Evidence that prosecution witnesses may have given false testimony could potentially get Flowers' conviction overturned, said Bennett Gershman, a former prosecutor who now teaches law at Pace University. Following his release from prison in 2013,Hallmon tried to run over a Carroll County sheriff's deputy while escaping a drug bust. Willie James McDaniel Obituary - tributearchive.com He has been behind bars ever since. One of them, LaSamuel Gamble, had more money in his possession when he returned to Alabama, Presley said. Where was Willie James Hemphill on the morning of the Tardy murders In 1880 James, now 16, has an additional. 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. He said he began working at Tardy Furniture on June 29, 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. 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. Jessie Mae Hemphill; Jimmie Gordon; Jimmy "Duck" Holmes; Jimmy Burns; Jimmy Dawkins; Jimmy Holmes; Jimmy Johnson; . Its almost impossible to not hate him and to believe he is guilty. The FBI checked it out. More importantly, Woods said she was certain that she didn't make the trip with Hemphill that day. Look, Ive got something yall need to get, he said he told them. 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. The U.S. Supreme Court decided 7-to-1 that prosecutors unconstitutionally eliminated black jurors during the trial proceedings for Timothy Tyrone Foster in 1987. analysis of his record of striking potential black jurors, Curtis Flowers' prosecution witness says testimony was all 'make believe', Recanted testimony, subjective science helps put Curtis Flowers on death row, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. "You're confusing me. Flowers parents have long believed in his innocence, visiting him in prison. He said he called Tardy the next day, asking if he still had a job, and she said he didnt. 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. So where was Hemphill during the day? It would indeed have been a solid alibi except it didn't check out. It wasn't that day." 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. 5 Visits. Editor's note: This endorsement editorial was updated on . 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. 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. 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. The news was quickly followed by a shocking revelation in American Public Media podcast In The Dark. 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. When In The Dark spoke to Woods, she denied the two were together. 1.58 3.33 /5. 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. Free this man. Again, he denied ever being there. 4). Curtis Flowers: Tardy Furniture store murders case takes twist - news Other facts may help explain why Hemphill initially was a suspect: The shoes he told In the Dark that he was wearing when he was questioned by investigators on July 21, 1996 Fila Grant Hill high-tops are the same type of sneaker that had left bloody footprints at the scene of the murders five days earlier. Share Obituary. Hemphill had previously told police and the podcast that he was not in Winona on the morning of the murders. 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. 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. Hemphill says he was in Memphis on the day of the murder and his alibi might check out. 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. Best search engine for True crime stories | Mugshots.com Then why havent the defense attorneys who have represented Mr. View contact information: phones, addresses, emails and networks. "I don't know nothing about it.". 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. Each victim had been murdered execution styleone or two bullets to the back of the head. A bloody shoe print found in the store (left), and an investigator's sketch comparing the print to the Fila Grant Hill sneakers. Can Marcus Presleys affidavit be trusted? 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. "I was here in Winona," Woods said. Not long after Armstrong found the gun in October 2001, two police officers happened to pull him over for speeding. Willie James Hemphill's alibi doesn't check out TIMELINE: Hemphill's long criminal record. She said she had seen somebody at 7:15 a.m. outside Simpsons car at the factory. Passed away February 25, 2012. Maybe he and Doyle were co-perpetrators. And so, in the corridors of the courthouse last week, a female journalist with In The Dark confronted Hemphill about his airtight alibi. The second best result is William E Hemphill Sr . A .380-caliber is hard to control. But he never cut ties with Winona, where his grandmother remained and where he committed a slew of small-time thefts in the years before and after the Tardy Furniture murders, according to public records. Willie James Hemphill is confronted by reporters at an Indianapolis courthouse in June 2019. After the second stick up, the two men argued about whether they should have killed the witness. This case was filed in U.S. Courts Of Appeals, U.S. Court Of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. Hemphill: A lot of people dont like to talk to the press and the police., Reporter: She was actually pretty talkative., Hemphill: Maybe she dont recall the day in question., Reporter: She actually has a really clear memory of that day., Hemphill: I dont know what she told you. 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. "Yes, sir," Snow replied. 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. Before he left on July 3, he said she gave him $30. Thats just standard procedure. Historical Person Search Search Search Results Results willie james hemphill (1955 - 2006) Try FREE for 14 days Try FREE for 14 days.