Madeleine Baran: Previously on In the Dark... Odell Hallmon: He said, "I got something for you to do, and so I'm going to put you in the cell with Curtis Flowers, and if you can get some information out of him that he did that murder, I'll let you go." Speaker 3: Well, we called him Cookie Monster, and as he grew, they took the monster off and just said Cookie. Odell got away with everything. He got privilege, a lot of privilege. Doug Evans: The following is a voluntary statement from Odell Hallmon, no middle name, also known as Cookie. When you contacted us, it's in volunteering this statement. Is that correct? And we haven't promised you any reward or good treatment or nothing. Is that correct? Madeleine Baran: One day last October, I drove out to an old jail in the town of Carrollton, Mississippi. Okay, we're at the old jail. The jail has been closed for about 20 years. It was built right after the Civil War in 1870. It's a two-story brick building with bluish-gray paint peeling off it and barred windows in the front. Our reporter, Parker, had gotten permission from the sheriff for us to go in. She got there before me. Parker Yesko: Hello. Madeleine Baran: Hi. Parker Yesko: Bring your flashlight. Madeleine Baran: Is there any electricity in here at all? Parker Yesko: In this building? I don't think so. Madeleine Baran: Parker had found something she wanted to show me. Okay, so we're entering the jail cells. We walked down a narrow hallway. The cells were on our right and there was a barred window on the left side that cast a dim ray of light inside. Parker Yesko: All right, next cell over. Madeleine Baran: We got to the last cell, the one all the way at the end of the hallway. There was a red velvet Christmas bow wrapped around the bars about eight feet up. Someone had left a box of nails and a condom wrapper on the little tray where the jailer would pass food to the inmates. There was an empty bottle of Slice soda on the ground. The cell door was open, so we walked inside, and as we did, the sunlight faded so I pulled out my flashlight. And as I shined the flashlight around, I saw something written on the wall next to a bottom bunk. "Cookie heart Regina?" In this childish, teenager handwriting. Parker Yesko: There's graffiti on the wall that says Cookie. He definitely was here. We don't know exactly when, but... Madeleine Baran: This was his cell at some point. Parker Yesko: Oh, yeah. Madeleine Baran: Cookie. Odell "Cookie" Hallmon, the state's most important witness in the Curtis Flowers case, the man who testified that Curtis confessed to him in prison. This graffiti was the closest I'd gotten to Odell Hallmon, and it was strange to see traces of him still in this jail after so many years. But I wasn't there to look for Odell's graffiti. I was there to look for records of his crimes, and Carroll County stores some of its criminal records in this old jail. I was trying to find out what had happened back in 2001 when Odell Hallmon recorded those videos with the DA's investigator. I wanted to find out if Odell had been facing any charges at the time and whether he'd gotten anything in exchange for helping the prosecution in the Curtis Flowers case. If Odell had gotten something, that would be really important because it would contradict what the DA, Doug Evans, has said in court, that he didn't give Odell anything, and it would seriously call into question whether Odell was telling the truth when he got up on the stand in the courtroom and told jurors that Curtis Flowers had confessed to him. I decided that the way to figure this out would be to look for records that might show if some kind of deal had been made back in 2001. I was looking for any dropped charges or any unusual sentence, anything that might indicate that Odell got something, anything, for helping out the state. As best I could tell, no one had done this before. No one had really dug into the full history of Odell "Cookie" Hallmon. I had no idea what I would find. This is season two of In The Dark, an investigative podcast by APM Reports. I'm Madeleine Baran. This season is about the case of Curtis Flowers, a black man from a small town in Mississippi who spent the past 21 years fighting for his life and a white prosecutor who spent that same time trying just as hard to execute him. Some of the old cells in the Carrollton Jail were filled with filing cabinets stacked on their sides on the metal bunks. We started climbing onto the bunks to open them, looking for any criminal records that might mention Odell "Cookie" Hallmon. I feel like this is [inaudible 00:05:17] don't you? Then we noticed some smaller drawers just lying out in the hallway. Each one was crammed full of index cards. They were booking cards for the jail. It's just jammed packed in this. It's like a shoebox full of these cards, these 5"x7" cards. Parker Yesko: Is that a dead spider? Madeleine Baran: Yes, definitely. Parker Yesko: Let's take them all. Madeleine Baran: Okay. We grabbed these files and hauled them over to a desk in another room. Okay, so we're looking for Odell Hallmon on these cards. So where are the H's? Parker Yesko: We're in this one. Madeleine Baran: This one? Parker Yesko: The super packed one. Yeah. H's. Madeleine Baran: Harper... yeah, H's. Harper, Harris, Harris, Harris, Harris... Parker Yesko: They're all stuck together. Madeleine Baran: Hall... Odell. There he is. Date of birth, 11/19/75. This is Odell, alias or nickname Cookie. There he is. Parker Yesko: Build, heavy. Complexion, light. Madeleine Baran: Occupation, none. The charges or the arrest was for aggravated assault on... oh, the day before Christmas, Eve 12/23/92. Okay. Oh, here he is again. Odell Hallmon Jr. This is from April 7th, 1993 for concealed weapon. Alias or nickname, Cookie. Here's another one, Odell Hallmon Jr., August 14th, 1991. Hold for reform school. How old is he? Parker Yesko: 16, right? Madeleine Baran: 16? Aggravated assault. Parker Yesko: Is this another one? Madeleine Baran: You guys, this just keeps going. Hallmon. There he is again. Odell Hallmon Jr. April 7th, 1992. Simple assault. Here's another one. July 29th, 1991. Aggravated assault. This guy has got so many cards. The booking records in the Carrollton Jail were for just an 11-year period and just from one county, Doug Evans' district, the Fifth Circuit Court district of Mississippi, has seven counties spread out across North Central Mississippi and there are sheriff's offices in each one and many small town police departments. Our reporter, Parker, started calling around to the clerks at all of these places, asking them to dig through their records. Speaker 6: And you want arrest records? Parker Yesko: Yeah. Speaker 6: Wait, what was the name you were looking for? Parker Yesko: Odell Hallmon. Speaker 6: Hallmon... Parker Yesko: H-A-L-L-M-O-N. Speaker 6: That would take a while to find because I couldn't tell you where they're at. They're here somewhere. I don't know. I would have to dig back in the back. I'm still working on it, Ms. Parker. All our records are in files and we're kind of old school still, so it takes a while to be digging, since it's all the way back to the '90s. Parker Yesko: I hear you. Madeleine Baran: After months of doing this, we ended up with more than a thousand pieces of paper: copies of arrest reports, jail bookings, criminal indictments, and we put all of this onto a timeline. The timeline was more than 50 pages long. It began in 1988 when Odell was just 12 years old. Odell was arrested for aggravated assault. It continued from there: arrest for fighting, for disturbing the peace, for simple assault, for aggravated assault, for burglary, for stabbing a man in the neck and head, and that was all before Odell Hallmon's 18th birthday. In the next few years after that, the arrests continued. Odell racked up charges for trespassing, probation violations, robbery, and assault, but what I was most interested in were four arrests that came in the months leading up to Odell "Cookie" Hallmon giving those statements to the DA's investigator about Curtis Flowers. Those are the videos that you heard in the previous episode. Here's what happened in the months leading up to Odell recording those videos. Four arrests. First, in July of 2000, about nine months before those videos were made, the cops got a call that Odell was out selling drugs around town. A sheriff's deputy named Brad Carver headed out with his partner and they tracked Odell down at a gas station. Brad Carver: We got there. He was not in his car, so we knew he had to be in the service station. So me and another deputy went inside the service station and we asked the clerk. She knew who he was because he was from that area. We said, "Where's Cookie at?: And she pointed. He was in the bathroom. When he come out of that bathroom and saw us, he lit out and went right through both of us and went through the front door running and I ended up tackling him and I tackled him and that day, he had probably 11 crack rocks on him that day. Madeleine Baran: Odell was arrested and held briefly in jail. Second, in February of 2001, three months before those videos were made, Odell was caught with a nine millimeter pistol. Odell was a felon and so it was illegal for him to have a gun. He was arrested. He bonded out. Third, in March of 2001, two months before those videos were made, Odell was arrested for possession of marijuana and for armed robbery. He bonded out for that, too, and went home. And finally just two weeks after that, Odell got pulled over by some Winona cops. They searched his car and found 132 rocks of crack cocaine. Odell was arrested and held in jail on a half million dollar bond, and so four possible charges hanging over Odell Hallmon. That's what was going on when Odell went into that room in May of 2001 with the DA's investigator, John Johnson, and told him that he had information that they would want to help them in the case against Curtis Flowers. Just one week after Odell made that video, one of the charges, the one for armed robbery, was dismissed by the county attorney. Odell did plead guilty to illegal possession of a firearm and he ended up serving a year in jail. As for the other two possible charges, the drug ones, the ones for possessing crack, Odell wasn't even indicted for those charges, let alone convicted of them. Those two drug cases seemed to just go away. I tried to find out why that had happened. I called the DA's office, but Doug Evans didn't return my calls. I sent Doug Evans's office a public records request about it, but Evans didn't respond. I thought that someone who would definitely know whether Odell got a deal in exchange for his testimony in the Curtis Flowers case would be Odell's lawyer from back then, a public defender named Lee Bailey, not to be confused with the famous attorney F. Lee Bailey, who represented O.J. Simpson. Odell's Lee Bailey was actually in the room when Odell made that statement in one of those videos back in 2001. I went to see him at his office with our reporter Parker. Lee Bailey: What can I do for you? Parker Yesko: How was today? How was court. Lee Bailey: Tiresome. Parker Yesko: Yeah? Lee Bailey: Yeah, just stand up there all day long and trying to talk to these idiots and get them to admit that they're wrong. Madeleine Baran: So the idiots are your clients? Okay, I got it. Lee Bailey: All right, what y'all want? Madeleine Baran: I asked Lee Bailey about that video that was made back in 2001, the one that he was there for as Odell's lawyer. And so in 2001, there's a video where Odell Hallmon is giving a statement to law enforcement. Do you remember this? Lee Bailey: No, I don't remember anything about that. Madeleine Baran: Okay. Lee Bailey: Was that a long time ago? I had a lot of cases. They all run together after a while. Madeleine Baran: I asked Lee Bailey if he had any documents from Odell Hallmon's case from back in 2001, anything that would show whether the DA gave Odell anything in exchange for giving a statement. Would you have any record of whether or not Odell giving that statement was helpful in his case? Lee Bailey: Would I have any- Madeleine Baran: Yeah. Lee Bailey: No, I get rid of stuff as fast as I can. I don't want them coming back and saying, "I want a copy of my motion for discovery." You see? So if I kept all that, we'd have to have another room with nothing but that. Madeleine Baran: Would be a great room, though. So no chance that you would have that written down anywhere? Lee Bailey: No. No. Madeleine Baran: Shoot. Okay. So Lee Bailey told me that it's possible Odell Hallmon could have gotten a deal in exchange for something, but he just doesn't know because he got rid of the file. But he did tell me how it works when the DA is considering offering a deal to one of his clients in exchange for information. Lee Bailey: It has to do with the district attorney and assistant district attorney, and it has to do with the law enforcement officer who was arresting him and how they felt about it. Madeleine Baran: Okay. Lee Bailey: It's hard to explain. Sometimes, they... say they offer you 10 years and you go to them and start talking to them about different things, maybe that Cookie could tell them about other crimes in the community, you see? Then they could come on down if he did that, see? Madeleine Baran: So did he have something that he had that was valuable? Lee Bailey: I don't know. I don't remember. Madeleine Baran: I went to talk to Brad Carver about this. He's the deputy who had tackled Odell in the parking lot and caught him with drugs. He's now the warden of the county jail in Grenada, Mississippi, the biggest city in Doug Evans's district. I interviewed Brad Carver at his office at the jail and I asked him what he thinks happened with that drug case against Odell. Brad Carver: He worked something out with someone, either the DA or some other agency, because he didn't stay in jail long. Madeleine Baran: Brad Carver told me he doesn't actually know if the DA made a deal with Odell, but he told me that Odell was well-known for trying to get out of charges by offering information. Brad Carver: I'm going to be honest with you, I know how Cookie was. He hated being locked up, so he had a lot of information on other drug dealers and other people that he would always snitch on or tell stuff on. He would make a little phone call and talk to folks and that would help him a lot, either cut his time down or not even have to go on stuff. Madeleine Baran: And although Brad Carver said he doesn't know how exactly Odell got out of being charged in that drug case, his best guess is that it probably had something to do with the case against Curtis Flowers. Brad Carver: I think he also had a lot of pull because he was like an eyewitness or something dealing with the Tardy Furniture murders and he was testifying on the guy that actually did the killing, so I know he had some... that helped him a lot out of some stuff too. I think it did. Madeleine Baran: Would you ever hear that directly from an attorney involved in the case or someone at the courts or something like that? Brad Carver: Yeah, I never heard anything like that. Uh-uh. Madeleine Baran: Okay, but if he didn't have information, you'd expect the man would've been in prison a long time? Brad Carver: Oh, correct. Yes. No doubt. Yes, ma'am. Madeleine Baran: So do you know what he ended up saying to get out? Brad Carver: I really don't, now. That's over my head. I don't know. Madeleine Baran: It's been 17 years since Odell Hallmon became a witness for DA Doug Evans in the case against Curtis Flowers. Odell has testified for the state in four trials. He's become one of Doug Evans's star witnesses, but Odell being Odell or Cookie being Cookie, his crimes didn't stop after he decided to work with the prosecutor. He kept on breaking the law and prosecutors were left with a choice. When the state's star witness gets caught committing crimes, what kind of punishment should he get? It didn't take long for Odell to cause trouble again. In 2003 while DA Doug Evans was waiting to see whether Curtis Flowers's conviction from his second trial would be overturned, waiting to see whether he'd need Odell to testify in a third trial, Odell Hallmon was arrested for aggravated assault and robbery, but the charges were dropped entirely. According to the case file, they were dropped by the justice court because of a lack of evidence. A few months after that, also in 2003, Odell got in trouble again. According to news coverage of this crime, "A lone gunman went on a shooting rampage, drove by a yard with four or five people in it, and just stopped and went to shooting towards the house and the people. No one was injured in the shooting, but one of the bullets did go through the house and struck the TV." Odell Hallmon was arrested for it and charged with felony shooting into a dwelling, but the case was dismissed. The court record says it was because the witnesses couldn't be found. The next year, 2004, Odell testified for the prosecution in Curtis Flowers's third trial, telling the jury that Curtis had confessed to him. Later that same year, while Curtis's conviction from that trial was on appeal and DA Doug Evans was waiting to see whether he'd need Odell to testify in a fourth trial, Odell was caught with nearly 10 grams of cocaine. A few months after that, he was caught with about 50 grams of cocaine and an illegal gun. All three of those crimes were felonies. By this point, Odell had committed so many crimes that he was eligible for Mississippi's version of the Three Strikes Law. In Mississippi, it's called habitual offender. The grand jury indicted Odell, and if he'd been convicted this time, he could have been sent to prison for 30 years without parole. But that didn't happen because the DA offered Odell a deal. He decided to drop the habitual offender charge against Odell and he decided to drop all but one of the other charges against him. Odell pleaded guilty to the one remaining drug charge and he ended up serving about eight years. While Odell was locked up, he continued to testify in the Curtis Flowers trials, the fourth one in 2007 and the fifth one in 2008, and the latest one, the sixth one, in 2010. During the time that Odell was testifying in those trials, according to the documents we obtained, Odell racked up dozens of infractions in prison: for fighting, for hitting a female officer with a tray, for having a shank, for having weed in his underwear, for trying to bite an officer, and for having what appeared to be a spear in his cell, among many other things. In April of 2010, Odell was identified by prison officials as a "disruptive core member of the Vice Lords." I talked to a former police officer named Michael Gross who used to work in the jail, so he'd see Odell cycle in and out. I talked to him at his house. His kids were in the next room. What was he like in jail? Michael Gross: Just terrible. The worst inmate of the prison. Knocking, kicking on the cell all day... even for the other inmates, it was intimidating. We couldn't really put him in population because everybody was pretty much scared of him. Madeleine Baran: What would he do to people? Michael Gross: Like I said, he had a mouthpiece on him. He know how to talk to you. He's guy you wouldn't want to trust because he could connive anybody. He'll make a German Shepherd think he's a bulldog. I know I use a lot of analogies, but [inaudible 00:22:42]- Madeleine Baran: I like that one. I like that one, actually. Michael Gross: ... what kind of guy he was. He can... Madeleine Baran: Even in a jail where you think there's a bunch of guys who maybe also have those skills, but he was better at it? Michael Gross: He'd been doing it for years. He'd been doing it for years. Madeleine Baran: But on the stand in the Curtis Flowers trials, Odell presented himself as a changed man. He described himself not as a schemer, but as a victim, the kind of guy who's easily misled by the wrong crowd. Odell told the jurors that he used to be especially vulnerable to offers of cigarettes. Odell said, "Cigarettes hold a big power over you if you ain't got God in your life." But now, Odell told the jurors, Christ had come into his life and, "I done start doing what is right for a change." To Michael Gross, the former cop who'd seen Odell locked up, all of this was hard to believe. So did people in the jail, the people who worked in the jail, think Odell was credible? Michael Gross: Nope. Madeleine Baran: Did anybody think he was credible? Michael Gross: No. No. No. And I don't understand how Doug ever used even... I guess you'd say these in-jail snitches, they're pretty much what they used. Madeleine Baran: So if Odell had... when you were working in the jail, if Odell had come to you and said, "Hey, I was talking to this other guy in this cell and he told me he confessed to some crimes," would you believe him? Michael Gross: No. I'd do some investigation, but I wouldn't believe him. Madeleine Baran: Odell Hallmon got out of prison in 2013 and not long after that, he was in trouble again. And this time, what Odell did is the kind of crime that people almost never get away with. It happened while Curtis Flowers's conviction from the sixth trial was on appeal and DA Doug Evans was waiting to see whether that conviction would be overturned, waiting to see whether he'd need Odell to testify in yet another trial, the seventh one. It was 2014 and Deputy Brad Carver got a call about Odell. Brad Carver: I basically remember one morning we got a tip on him, a call from a female that had gave us some information about him transporting a lot of drugs and weapons in the car and supposedly was transporting some dope to somebody's house to drop it off. Madeleine Baran: The sheriff's office already had two other warrants out on Odell, and so Deputy Carver and two other officers headed out to find him. Brad Carver: We saw him coming from the house he was supposed to be coming from, dropping the dope off. Madeleine Baran: Odell was driving away when Deputy Carver and the other officers got there. They turned on their lights and ordered Odell to pull over, but Odell refused. Deputy Carver and the other officers tried to use their cars to box Odell in to stop him from driving off. Then Deputy Carver got out of his squad car and started walking toward Odell's car to try to arrest him. Brad Carver: Yelling, "Stop, stop the vehicle. Don't go, just stop, stop, stop, stop, stop." Madeleine Baran: But Odell didn't stop. Instead, he sped right toward Deputy Carver like he was aiming for him. Brad Carver: He just started coming towards me and I just dove off out of the way. Madeleine Baran: So if you hadn't dove out of the way, would he have hit you? Brad Carver: Oh, no doubt. He was trying to run me over, yes. He was. It had my heart racing. It was a pretty big deal. Madeleine Baran: Then Odell fled. As he raced away, he hit Deputy Carver's squad car and Carver tried to shoot out his tires. Brad Carver: I just pulled my weapon and took out the front left and back right tire, thinking it would maybe slow him down, but it didn't. He was running on rims and he ended up getting away from us. Madeleine Baran: And then a few days later... Brad Carver: We ended up finding his car on a real back county road in Carroll County burnt up, so he had burnt the car up, I guess any evidence or anything in the car. Madeleine Baran: Odell had burned up his car and now he was on the run. The sheriff's office got a judge's order to track Odell's phone and they called in the US Marshal Fugitive Task Force. The federal marshals found Odell hiding out at a Red Roof Inn in Jackson. They arrested him and put him in jail. It seems like one of the more serious crimes you can commit, to try to run over a sheriff's deputy. Brad Carver: I agree. Correct, yes. Madeleine Baran: Odell Hallmon was indicted for aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, and again, a grand jury indicted him as a habitual offender. If Odell had been convicted of this crime, he would've been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He would've been gone for good. But that didn't happen because district attorney, Doug Evans, did not push to bring the case against Odell to trial right away. Instead, it kept getting postponed. Months passed, then a year, then longer. Why is there years passing? Brad Carver: I have no earthly idea. I don't know. I know it's a bad deal. I don't know. It's just how the system worked. I don't know. He should have been locked up years ago and never let out, the way I feel. But I have nothing to do with that. So once we pretty much give our information over to the district attorney's office, we're waiting to hear from them after that. Madeleine Baran: I talked to a lot of other law enforcement in the area about Odell and they told me they were just as puzzled as Brad Carver was as to why Odell kept getting out of jail, why he was always back on the streets. I talked to a sheriff's deputy named Calvin Young. Calvin Young: I don't know what the reason he was being let released so soon on some of the stuff that he might've been charged on it, but he was. I don't know why that was happening, but he would go in and wasn't long he'd be out. Michael Gross: He was just... what's the word I want to use? Just say a menace to society, as they would say. Madeleine Baran: This is Michael Gross, the former police officer who'd worked in the jail. Michael Gross: He should have been locked up a long time ago. Madeleine Baran: Why do you think he kept getting in and out so quickly? Michael Gross: Superman. Doug Evans. Doug Evans. Doug Evans is the DA over Carroll, Montgomery, and [inaudible 00:29:29], and Grenada. Doug Evans allowed him to continue to stay out. They created a monster, the state of Mississippi did. That's what I said. With Odell Hallmon, they created a monster. Madeleine Baran: The law enforcement officers we talked to said that Odell Hallmon should have been put away a long time ago. What Odell did next would show just how right they were. That's after the break. In 2016, Odell Hallmon was living in a town about 15 minutes from Winona. He was dating a woman named Marquita Hill. They dated off and on for years. They had a son together. Odell would beat up Marquita all the time. Marquita's brother, Craig, told me about it. Craig Hill: He used to hit her a lot though, blacked her eye and stuff, and then when she came home, she'd have makeup on or have something covering her eye or... he did hit her a lot, though. Madeleine Baran: In the spring of 2016, Marquita moved herself and her twelve-year-old son into the house of her mother, Carolyn Ann Sanders. Craig Hill: She went to go live with my mother because she had the burglar bar doors, the alarm system. She felt safe down there. Madeleine Baran: On April 27th, 2016, at around two in the morning, Marquita's sister, Renee, got a phone call. Renee told me about it one day last summer as we sat in folding chairs under a tree in front of her trailer. The phone call Renee got was from Marquita and Odell's twelve-year-old son. Renee Hill: He called me with the calmest voice in the world. "Auntie, get up, come down here. My daddy shot and killed my mama and grandmama." Just as calm, just like that. Madeleine Baran: He saw it happen? Renee Hill: He saw his dad shoot his mama and his mom take her last breath. Madeleine Baran: Odell had killed his ex-girlfriend, Marquita Hill, while their son was in the room. According to the Hill family, what happened next was that the boy ran into his grandmother's bedroom and told his grandmother to get in the closet, but his grandmother told him, "No, you get in the closet." So the boy did. Then Odell came into the grandmother's bedroom and shot her in the head. Odell's son was trying to stay as still as he could in the closet. Odell shot into the closet, but he missed just barely. The bullet grazed his son's arm. Odell walked over to the closet and looked inside. His son played dead and held his breath and then Odell left and his son picked up the phone and called his aunt Renee. After the phone call, Renee raced down the street, pounded on her brother's window, and woke him up. Then they rushed over to the house together. Her brother went inside and got Marquita's son. The police hadn't gotten there yet, and while everyone waited for the police to get there, people from the neighborhood started coming out of their doors and walking over in the middle of the night to see what was going on. Renee Hill: It was yard full before any police got there. Madeleine Baran: How long did it take the police? Renee Hill: Oh, it was like almost an hour. We called 911. They was like, "They were busy." Madeleine Baran: The police didn't get there right away because they had other crimes to respond to that night. Odell hadn't just killed Marquita Hill and her mother, Carolyn. He'd been driving around all night on a killing spree. He went to one house 20 minutes away, crept up to a window, and aimed his gun at a man who was sleeping inside, fired, and shot him. The man died. That man's name was Kenneth Loggins. Odell went to another house and shot a man there five times. That man, Marcus Brown, actually survived, and after all of that, Odell Hallmon drove to the courthouse to turn himself in. It was around 4:00 in the morning so the courthouse was closed. By this time, the sun was almost up. Eventually, two deputies arrived and they arrested Odell and put him in jail. This triple murder was the biggest crime in the area since the murders at Tardy Furniture 20 years earlier. In the Tardy furniture case, Doug Evans's investigators had met many times with the family members of the victims. This is something that Evans has said is important. He'd actually campaigned on it. In one of his campaign ads he said, "As your district attorney, I will work closely with all victims or the relatives of deceased victims, keeping you informed of all relevant court proceedings, any possible plea negotiations, and your rights to restitution as afforded by law." But in this case, that's not what happened. 14 days after the murders, Renee Hill, the woman whose sister and mother had been killed by Odell, got a phone call. It was a woman from the DA's office. Renee Hill: All they told us to come to the courthouse, they had something for us. They didn't tell us what we were coming for or anything. Madeleine Baran: Renee had some family members come with her, but a lot of them didn't because it didn't sound like something where everyone needed to be there. It just sounded like some kind of meeting. When Renee got there, she was ushered into her room. Some of the other family members of Odell's victims were there, too. Then the district attorney, Doug Evans, walked in. Doug Evans: If you all don't know me, I'm Doug Evans, your district attorney. Our office is handling this case. Madeleine Baran: One of the members of the Hill family recorded this meeting with Doug Evans on a cell phone and another family member gave me a copy of it. Doug Evans: I couldn't let anybody know what was going on up until this point because part of what we were doing this morning... we can't let out what's going on. We had a grand jury recall this morning. We recalled a special grand jury to hear this case and we indicted Odell on three counts of first three murder, one count of... Madeleine Baran: Doug Evans told the family members the reason he'd had them all come down was because this whole thing was basically wrapped up. Odell had been indicted just that morning on three counts of first-degree murder, one count of aggravated assault, and one count of illegal possession of a firearm. Doug Evans told them something else, too, that Odell Hallmon had agreed to plead guilty and that actually, he was about to be brought into this courthouse right now because there was going to be a hearing and that was going to be it. Renee Hill: We gets over there, then they's like, "Oh, he having court today. He pleaded guilty." We were all was like, "Huh?" Doug Evans: Also, I want to let y'all know that at this point, it looks like he is willing to plead guilty to the maximum penalty to all of these charges, which is serving the rest of his life without any possibility of parole. Renee Hill: And they was like, "It was just best. He's pleaded guilty to it, and so let the judge just give the sentence and y'all deal with it." That's the way they actually just put it to us. "Just go along with it. He won't ever see daylight. He won't never see the outside again, so you don't have anything to worry about." Madeleine Baran: For Renee and for a lot of other people in the Hill family, life in prison for Odell was not what they wanted. They wanted the death penalty, although they barely had a chance to think about it. They'd just buried their two family members four days earlier. Renee Hill: Why do he get to live and breathe and eat when they didn't get to? He didn't give them a chance. Madeleine Baran: So you would hope... you would seek the death penalty? Renee Hill: Mm-hmm. Madeleine Baran: You had no idea any of this was happening? Doug Evans didn't come to you and say, "Would this be acceptable to you?" Renee Hill: No. He never called. Not one of us, not one. Madeleine Baran: For a district attorney to seek the death penalty in Mississippi, a crime has to meet certain criteria. With a few exceptions like killing a police officer, it's not enough to just murder someone. Most of the time, for a murderer to be eligible for the death penalty, the person needs to have committed another crime, too, at the same time: murder plus another felony. There's actually a list of felonies that count. They include child abuse, burglary, robbery, sexual battery, kidnapping, among others. Like in the Curtis Flowers case, Curtis killing four people, that by itself would not have been enough to get the death penalty. Doug Evans needed to show that Curtis had done one of those other crimes at the same time. In Curtis's case, Evans said, that other crime was robbing the furniture store. In the case of Odell Hallmon's triple murder, it certainly seemed possible that Odell had committed one of those other crimes like burglary when he broke into the house where Marquita was living. But to figure that out, law enforcement would need to conduct a thorough investigation. They'd need to spend a lot of time investigating each one of the three crime scenes, trying to search all the places where Odell Hallmon might've hidden evidence, talking to as many witnesses as they could possibly find, and that kind of work, it just can't happen in a few days. And it didn't happen in this case. The whole thing was wrapped up in 14 days, 14 days from the night that Odell Hallmon went on a killing spree to this moment in the courthouse when the plea deal had been made and the case was closed. In this meeting at the courthouse, the family members of the victims asked Doug Evans about the investigation. They asked Evans if law enforcement had ever found the gun that Odell had used. Doug Evans told them no. They asked Evans whether anyone had figured out why Odell had done this, what his motive was. Doug Evans told them no. Doug Evans: He came up with some different general things, but nothing specific. Madeleine Baran: And Doug Evans told them it was almost like as soon as Odell Hallmon committed these murders, he regretted it. Doug Evans: And I think that's kind of what he said. He flipped out. It's almost like he did, and as soon as he did it, he regretted it because he turned himself in and he started pretty much admitting what he did right after that. Madeleine Baran: It's not true that Odell regretted the murders right away. Not at all. And the reason I know this is because I got a copy of the incident report that the Montgomery County Sheriff's office made after the murders, the report from the deputy who went to the courthouse to arrest Odell that morning. That deputy's name is Jim Burton, and in his report, Burton writes that as he was handcuffing Odell, Odell asked him "if they were all dead." Deputy Burton told Odell he didn't know. A few minutes later, Odell asked if Kenneth Loggins was dead. Burton told him yes. Odell said, "Good." Then Odell asked if Marcus Brown was dead. Deputy Burton told him no, and Odell said, "He should be." After that meeting, the families were led into the courtroom. Odell Hallmon was brought in, too. Renee Hill: He was turned toward the judge and we were sitting at the back, but you could tell by the side of his face he was standing there with a smirk on his face. He never turned around and apologized or said anything. Madeleine Baran: Sometimes, people whose family members have been killed or the victims of crimes get to make a statement in court. Did you? Renee Hill: They didn't offer us that. They wanted us to just go along with what was done. Madeleine Baran: Odell pleaded guilty and he was sent away. Renee Hill can't help but wonder whether all of this was preventable, whether her mother and sister might still be alive if the DA, Doug Evans, had been tougher on Odell Hallmon back when he was committing all those crimes in the years leading up to the murders. Renee Hill: He shouldn't have even been out. Maybe if actions would've been took then, it all would've been a different outcome. It has you thinking why? Don't anybody want to see justice, whether they black, white or other? It would be anybody. I'd want to see justice for anybody. Madeleine Baran: Renee and her brother Craig are now raising Marquita's son together. They just marked two years without their sister and mother. Craig Hill told me that what has stuck with him through all of this is how little power he and his family had. Craig Hill: We feel helpless. I feel like we had no help, period. Nobody assisted you. Nobody spoke up and said, "Hey, this is not right." Madeleine Baran: The district attorney, Doug Evans, had made a choice and it led to disaster. Doug Evans could have pushed to have his star witness, Odell Hallmon, locked up years ago. He could have tried to put him away for life long before Odell had killed anyone. Doug Evans could have done that, but he chose not to. Odell Hallmon is now serving three life sentences at Parchman Prison, the same prison where Curtis Flowers is on death row. I decided to try to reach Odell there to try to talk to him, to find out what he would say now that there were no deals left to be made, now that he was locked up in prison for life with no chance of getting out. As far as I can tell, the only thing that Odell Hallmon has ever said to a reporter was just a couple of words. He'd said it while being led into a police SUV after his court appearance for the three murders, he was wearing an orange jumpsuit that was too small for him and he was barefoot. His hands were cuffed in front of him. As Odell climbed into the SUV, a TV reporter asked him a question. Speaker 13: Did you do these crimes you're accused of? Madeleine Baran: "What do you think?" he said. Odell Hallmon: What do you think? Madeleine Baran: The standard way to reach someone in prison is to send them a letter, and I did that, but we thought there might be a better way to reach Odell. A lot of people told us that Odell, despite being locked up inside one of the most notorious state prisons in the country, was sending out Facebook friend requests. Even the Hill family, the family whose sister and mother Odell murdered, they got those messages too. Craig Hill: He tried to contact me through Facebook one time and I spazzed out on him. Madeleine Baran: So Odell was trying to contact you from Parchman over Facebook? Craig Hill: Yeah. Uh-huh. He sent me a friend request and everything, and I'm like- Madeleine Baran: After he killed your mom and your sister? Craig Hill: This is probably maybe a month or two after. And he was sending a lot of people in that area and asking them for money, and he was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you send me some money?" Asking people for money. He's been asking a lot of people for money in this area. Madeleine Baran: And so one night, our producer Samara sent Odell Hallmon a Facebook friend request, and then we heard back. That's next time on In The Dark. In The Dark is reported and produced by me, Madeleine Baran, senior producer Samara Freemark, producer Natalie Jablonski, associate producer Rehman Tungekar, and reporters Parker Yesko and Will Craft. In The Dark is edited by Catherine Winter. Web editors are Dave Mann and Andy Kruse. The editor-in-chief of APM Reports is Chris Worthington. Original music by Gary Meister and Johnny Vince Evans. This episode was mixed by Corey Schreppel. You can see the timeline we put together of Odell Hallmon's criminal record, all the arrests, charges, and dropped cases on our website, inthedarkpodcast.org, and we've also posted a video tour of the old Carrollton Jail so you can see what it's like.