Sixth Trial for Curtis Flowers, Mississippi African American, Opens June 7 in Winona; Prosecutors 'Set a Record'

Friends of Justice
Executive Director, Dr. Alan Bean
email: abean@friendsofjustice.netcell: 817.688.6765
office: 817.457.0025
Mailing Adress: 3415 Ainsworth Court, Arlington, Texas 76016

The case against Curtis Flowers [Winona, Mississippi] started with a bloody footprint. It took just over a week to link the print pattern to a Grant Hill Fila running shoe. Then a policeman remembered seeing a Fila shoe box in the bedroom closet of Connie Mae Moore, Curtis Flowers’ live-in girlfriend.

They couldn’t prosecute Curtis on one piece of circumstantial evidence, but Doug Evans and his investigator, John Johnson, knew they had their man.

That’s how wrongful conviction begins.

[Editor's note: On the morning of July 16, 1996, four people were brutally murdered at a furniture store in the small Mississippi town of Winona. By 11:00 am everybody had heard the news: Bertha Tardy, the proprietor of Tardy ‘s Furniture, had been killed execution style. Carmen Rigby, Tardy’s longtime bookkeeper, had suffered the same fate, as had hired hands, Bobo Stewart and Robert Golden. Golden was black, the other three victims were white. Six months later, Curtis Flowers, a young black Winona resident who had worked three days for Bertha Tardy, was arrested and charged with the brutal murder of four innocent people.Thirteen years, $300,000 and five trials later, Mr. Flowers remains behind bars and the state has been unable to obtain a final conviction. This sixth trial opens June 7. Dr. Alan Bean, a forensic historian, has been investigating the incident and has much to say about what has take place, thus far.]

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