Madeleine Baran:
Previously on In the Dark.

Speaker 2:
They thought that he did it. That's what they thought. That's what they was... Well, they didn't say he did it, but I think on the first day that's where they went with their investigation. They was questioning.

Speaker 3:
It was a jigsaw puzzle. They throw the pieces in and they fit. The ones that don't believe it, didn't pay attention to the evidence.

Speaker 4:
Asked me was I trying to buy a mobile home. Asked me if I knew what $30,000 could buy. They ended everything with this money to let me know that it is on the table.

Speaker 5:
He never did hang around much at all no more then. I think that he know he just told the story on Curtis. I think that Curtis should have been out a long time ago.

Madeleine Baran:
About six months after the murders at Tardy Furniture, a guy named Morgan McClurg was arrested for stealing. He wound up in a jail cell in Leflore County, Mississippi. The cell that Morgan was placed in was overcrowded. There were three bunks and the cell was supposed to fit six people. But Morgan said there were as many as eight or nine of them in there at the same time.

Morgan McClurg:
So at night you had all the beds full plus two or three people sleeping on the floor. And during the day, whoever slept on the floor would pick their mattresses and blanket up, fold them up, and we'd use them as chairs or whatever.

Madeleine Baran:
It was so crowded. There was barely enough room for everyone to stand up at the same time. There was no privacy. You couldn't have a private conversation. You couldn't even turn the page of a book without everyone noticing

Morgan McClurg:
Twenty-four hour a day, you was in that cell. And we had a shower in there. The bathroom was in there and the sink was in there. So we never left the cell unless it was to go to court or go to the doctor's appointment or something like that.

Madeleine Baran:
One of the other men in that overcrowded cell was Curtis Flowers. Curtis was there awaiting trial. This was in 1997, and by this point, Curtis had already been arrested for the killings at Tardy Furniture. But Morgan said Curtis didn't seem like a murderer to him.

Morgan McClurg:
Myself? I couldn't see him doing it, not the way he portrayed himself there. I was more comfortable with Curtis than I was with some of the other guys in there. I mean, he was always polite. He never got mad at anybody, never raised his voice. He kept to himself a lot, playing solitaire on his bunk or watching TV.
Or if he had something, you needed something, he'd let you borrow it or whatever. He was one of the nicest guys there.
I really thought he was going to get off.

Madeleine Baran:
Our producer, Natalie talked to another man who was in that cell with Curtis for months. His name is Timmy Haymore. Natalie talked to him outside his mom's house. It was kind of noisy because there was a flock of birds in the trees nearby.
And Timmy told her that Curtis wasn't like the other inmates. When everyone else would be playing dominoes,. Curtis would be reading his Bible and writing letters to his family. And he said, Curtis got pretty down at times, like one day when Curtis just wouldn't get out of bed at all.

Timmy Haymore:
And he sat there and he said, "Lord knows. Lord knows best. I didn't do this."
That's what he said. And tears are coming out of his eyes. And you can feel, if you human, you can feel when a person telling the truth and telling a lie. He said, "I didn't do this. I don't know why they charged me with this. I didn't do this."

Madeleine Baran:
"I didn't do this."
That's what Curtis Flowers told Timmy Haymore. But according to District Attorney Doug Evans, Curtis told something else to two other men who were in that cell. In that crowded little room, in the middle of the night when everyone else was sleeping, Curtis confessed to the murders at Tardy Furniture.
Two times. In two secret conversations. To two men. One of them was named Maurice Hawkins. The other was named Frederick Veal. That was a story at least that Hawkins and Veal told at Curtis Flowers first trial in 1997. Two men from one cell. Doug Evans told the jurors that Curtis couldn't help himself.
Evans said, "As most criminals do, he didn't have the ability not to brag about what he had done." And Evans presented these two jailhouse informants as credible. He said neither of them got anything in exchange for their statements.
One of the jailhouse snitches, Maurice Hawkins, died in 2016. But the other snitch, Frederick Veal, is still alive.
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.
The case against Curtis Flowers came down to three main pieces of evidence, the route, the gun, the confessions. This is an episode about the confessions.
One day in February, our producer, Samara, went to the suburbs of Atlanta to track down Frederick Veal. She found him in front of his house at the end of a cul-de-sac.

Samara:
Hey, are you Fred Veal by any chance?

Frederick Veal:
Yes, ma'am.

Samara:
I'm Samara.

Frederick Veal:
Who is you?

Samara:
I'm a reporter.

Madeleine Baran:
Frederick Veal was wearing a black tank top. He had two tattoos of pin-up girls, one on each arm. They went inside. Frederick Veal lives with his wife and daughter, who were upstairs watching TV.

Frederick Veal:
I got company down here. She can hear everything. It affecting her ear.

Madeleine Baran:
Samara and Frederick sat in his living room. Frederick lit a menthol cigarette.

Frederick Veal:
Okay, you ready?

Samara:
Yes. So tell me, where's your story start?

Frederick Veal:
Well, it started back when I got locked up in the Leflore County jail.

Madeleine Baran:
Frederick had been arrested for stealing his sister's car. He didn't have money for bail, so he was stuck there trying to figure out a way to get out. And Frederick knew his way around the legal system. Over the years, he committed a lot of mostly petty crimes and he got locked up all the time on all kinds of charges. He knew the sheriff, a man named Ricky Banks. And so, Frederick said, he wrote Sheriff Banks a letter.

Frederick Veal:
I said, man, you need to help me get out. And he called me out. Shackle me down, had them bring me down there to talk to him.

Madeleine Baran:
Frederick said Sheriff Banks made him an offer.

Frederick Veal:
He said, "Mr. Veal, I got something for you to do. I'm going to let you go if you work with us."
I said, "What?"
He said, "I can help you get out of here."
I said, "Well, I'll do anything to get out of here, man. I don't want to set up in this jail, man."

Madeleine Baran:
Frederick said Sheriff Banks told him that he could use his help in this murder case the cops had going. The sheriff told him that the cops had a man named Curtis Flowers sitting in this jail right now. Curtis hadn't gone to trial yet. This was back in 1997, before the first trial.

Frederick Veal:
He said, "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."

Samara:
And did you know who Curtis Flowers was at that point?

Frederick Veal:
Never seen him a day in my life. I hadn't even heard about the story. I was locked up. I ain't know nothing about no murder or none of that, in Winona. I didn't know nothing about that.
And I said, "Well, okay. I don't know him. I go in and talk to him and see can I get something out of him?"
And he put me in the cell the same day. Told me to pack my stuff and go in there and put me in the same cell.

Madeleine Baran:
Frederick said he was sent there on a mission to try to get a confession out of Curtis Flowers. But, he said, he didn't follow through.

Samara:
So did you try to get anything out of Curtis?

Frederick Veal:
No, I didn't try. I didn't ask him nothing. I didn't say nothing to him. He was to himself. He didn't talk much. He watched TV and he didn't say much. He didn't say much to nobody. Just a laid-back type of guy. He don't look like no murderer.

Madeleine Baran:
Frederick said that after a few days, Sheriff Banks called him back to the office.

Frederick Veal:
He said, "What you get from Curtis?"
I said, "I can't get nothing out of him. I ain't said nothing to him. He don't look like he just want to talk."

Madeleine Baran:
And Frederick thought that would be the end of it. But, he said, it wasn't. Frederick said he met with Sheriff Banks and the district attorney, Doug Evans, together.

Frederick Veal:
Then they tell me, "We going to do it this way then, and we going to tell you what to say."
I said, "Okay, I'll work with you. You let me go, I'm down with you. I want to get out."
He said, "You can go today."
I said, "Okay, come on. Let me run it."

Madeleine Baran:
And he said the sheriff and Doug Evans started telling him all these details about the murders at Tardy Furniture.

Frederick Veal:
I didn't know nothing about that case and about the people that got killed or nothing. At this point, it's just Darby's or Harvey, Tardy or something. I don't know. They told me that. I didn't know nothing about the case.

Samara:
Oh, so how did-

Frederick Veal:
380 and all that. And I don't know. I'm not a gunman, so I don't even know what a 380 from a 357.

Samara:
... Oh, really?

Frederick Veal:
Yeah. I'm not a gun person. I'm scared of guns.

Samara:
How did they... Did they show you any documents or they just tell you?

Frederick Veal:
They showed me pictures. Pictures of the gruesome scene.

Samara:
They did?

Frederick Veal:
Yeah. They showed me pictures of the gruesome scene. Pictures, and they were gruesome too. And said, "You want him to get away with this shit here? Look. Look at this shit."
Doug Evans had all the pictures sitting in front of me. Doug Evans, the prosecutor. Gruesome pictures. I shouldn't have seen them pictures.

Madeleine Baran:
And Frederick says that together, he and the sheriff and the DA, Doug Evans, put together a story.
On March 11th, 1997, Frederick Veal gave a taped statement to the DA's investigator, John Johnson, saying that Curtis Flowers confessed to him.

Samara:
Here. Can I show you some of these documents from... Hold on.

Madeleine Baran:
Samara brought the transcript to her interview with Frederick to see what he'd make of it, 21 years later.

Frederick Veal:
What is that? My statement.

Samara:
I'll show you.

Madeleine Baran:
The story that Frederick Veal had told about Curtis confessing took place over a late-night game of dominoes. It was around four in the morning and everyone else was sleeping, and so Frederick was the only one who heard what Curtis said.
Curtis told him that he killed four people at a furniture store. Curtis told him, "That he was mad and he went in there and he just clicked."
Curtis told him he killed the lady first and the little boy last. He said he didn't want to kill the boy, but he couldn't leave any witnesses.

Frederick Veal:
I did it by myself as long as I am, nobody going to tell me because I'm not going jail.

Madeleine Baran:
Curtis used the money he stole from the store, about twenty-something hundred dollars, to buy crack. A lot of crack. Frederick said Curtis told him that he'd started off, "Buying a hundred-dollar piece." And before he knew it, he said he'd smoked up to a thousand dollars

Frederick Veal:
Crack? Crack cocaine? I don't know.

Samara:
And then this quote. "I'm not worried. All they got on me is circumstantial evidence. I'm going to beat this."

Frederick Veal:
Circumstantial evidence. That dude gave me? No.

Samara:
That's not evidence?

Frederick Veal:
That dude gave me none of that. I wouldn't think of nothing like that to say in my life. Most of that stuff is stuff they put together.

Madeleine Baran:
The same day that Frederick Veal gave this statement to John Johnson back in March of 1997, he got out of jail. Because that very same day, Frederick's sister, the one he'd stolen the car from, dropped the charges.

Frederick Veal:
Yeah, the charges were dropped. But they let me go, so I was out.

Madeleine Baran:
We went to ask Frederick's sister, Sheila, about this. And Sheila said that was so long ago, she can't remember what happened to those charges.
Frederick Veal got out of jail, he went home, and sometime later, he's not sure exactly how much later it was, he said he got a call from Doug Evans.

Frederick Veal:
"Were you willing to go to court? Mr. Veal, will you go to court and testify that he told you that he killed them people?"
I said, "Yes, sir."
He said, "If he get convicted, it's a reward and I make sure you get all the money."
I'm young, too. I said, oh man. Broke and young. I said, "Okay, sure. Yeah, sure."

Madeleine Baran:
Frederick took this reward talk seriously. He said, Doug Evans told him that there was a $30,000 reward in the case and that if he testified against Curtis, he could split that reward with the other jailhouse snitch, Maurice Hawkins, who was also going to testify against Curtis.
And so, Frederick started dreaming about what he could buy with $15,000. He had this idea that he could use this money to transform himself into, as he put it, a thug.

Frederick Veal:
I said, I'm going to be like a thug. I was looking at jewelry, rings, everything. I said, I'm going to get gold put in my mouth and everything. Tattoos, everything. Promise people I'm going to get them money and this and that when I get my money. All kinds of crap.

Samara:
Really?

Frederick Veal:
Yeah. I went car shopping. I said I'm fixing to get me a new car.

Samara:
What kind of car did you want?

Frederick Veal:
I think it was a Malibu. Yeah. Chevy Malibu. Yeah. Old school.

Samara:
And so you actually went to the car dealer?

Frederick Veal:
I went everywhere.

Samara:
You're like, what can I get?

Frederick Veal:
Clothes, new clothes, everything. Oh, yeah.

Samara:
You made a wish list.

Frederick Veal:
A wish list, yes.

Madeleine Baran:
And so, Frederick went to Tupelo for Curtis Flowers first trial. He was going to hold up his part of the bargain, and then he was going to get his money. And at first, everything seemed to be going great.

Frederick Veal:
So they paid for my hotel and everything. Nice hotel, good eating food, a hundred dollars cash in my pocket.

Madeleine Baran:
Maurice Hawkins, the other jailhouse snitch, was there too. Frederick said the two of them shared a hotel room.

Frederick Veal:
Me and him had the same. We had a big old hotel with double beds and restaurant, all that. But before we went to the courtroom, before they took us to the courtroom, Doug Evans came to our room and went over what to say, rehearsing me on how his defense team going to come at me. And everything was just going to school and you teaching me what to say and how to do things.

Samara:
So it was prepping you?

Frederick Veal:
Uh-huh. Yeah. So pretty much when I went to court, I was prepared. When they came at me, I know what to say. I just say what I say, what he told me to say. I did. I went up there and I did it perfectly too. I didn't miss a beat. And they said, "You did a good job up there on the stand."

Madeleine Baran:
I've read the transcript of Frederick Veal's testimony, and he's right. He did do a really good job of telling the story. He clearly had command of it. The late-night domino game, the confession, Curtis's anger, his drug use. This whole story of a heart-to-heart between two cellmates.
Frederick Veal tells the jurors, "The only thing I have to say is if a person do something like that, it's cruel. That is hard. The way those folks were killed was hard. If a person do something like that, something gots to be wrong with them."
In his closing argument in that first trial, Doug Evans told the jurors that Frederick Veal and Maurice Hawkins, "Had absolutely nothing to gain by making their statements."
"This information came to the investigators," Evans said. "They followed it up. They took the statements and it is verified."
"And," Evans said, "Frederick Veal and Maurice Hawkins are the two final elements that make this case beyond any doubt, not just beyond a reasonable doubt."
Frederick Veal told Samara that he was actually pretty surprised that anyone took him seriously at all. If he was a juror and he was looking at himself, Frederick Veal, sitting up there in the witness box, he would be like, no way. That guy?

Frederick Veal:
I'm not a credible witness. Why you going to take me on the stand? I'm not a credible. I got a misdemeanor record long as Texas. Over a hundred-something misdemeanor. I'm a convicted felon. I'm in jail, too. I'm in jail. How you going to convict over my statement? That's what I want to know. How you get convicted on my statement?
But it worked out for them. It worked out for them. He got convicted.

Madeleine Baran:
Frederick said that after the trial, he started asking Doug Evans for his $15,000.

Frederick Veal:
I said, "Where the money at, man?" After he got convicted, I said, "Where the money?"
"We're going to get in touch with you."
So the time was passing by. I said, "Man, that man ain't got in touch with me."
Every time I called, they wouldn't let me talk to him. So I go up there. They wouldn't let me talk to him.

Samara:
Wait, so you would actually call Doug Evans or go to his office? Did you ever go to his office?

Frederick Veal:
Uh-huh. But they never let me talk to him. I ran him down and ran him down, and I still didn't get nothing out of the deal. And I didn't even see Doug Evans after that.
I said, oh, okay. I said, okay. Y'all played me. I said, okay, okay, okay.

Samara:
And so you never got any money?

Frederick Veal:
I never got my money.

Madeleine Baran:
Frederick Veal and Maurice Hawkins never testified again before a jury in the case of Curtis Flowers. About a year or so after Frederick Veal took the stand and said that Curtis had confessed to him, he recanted. He told Curtis's lawyers that the story wasn't true, that Curtis had not confessed to him.
Frederick Veal also signed an affidavit in 2016 saying that Curtis never confessed to him, and that Doug Evans and Sheriff Ricky Banks had met with him to make up a story. The affidavit says mostly what Frederick Veal told Samara, except that in the affidavit version, Veal said the money was offered by the DA's investigator, John Johnson, and that the amount was $30,000.
Maurice Hawkins also signed an affidavit. He signed his in 2015. And in that affidavit, Hawkins said that the story he told in court wasn't true. He said Curtis never confessed to him. Less than a year after signing that affidavit, Maurice Hawkins died. Those two affidavits are being used right now in Curtis's appeal.
The kind of appeal that's happening right now is something called a post-conviction. It's when you can bring in new evidence that's never been considered at trial. Curtis's lawyers are hoping these affidavits, along with other new information, will help convince the court to overturn Curtis's latest conviction and death sentence.
It's been nearly 21 years since Frederick Veal got up on the stand and told a jury that Curtis Flowers had confessed to a quadruple murder. Frederick's testimony had helped convince jurors to convict Curtis Flowers and sentence him to death.

Frederick Veal:
You talked to Curtis as well?

Samara:
I haven't. You got a message for him?

Frederick Veal:
I don't know. Seriously. I do not know. I was young and stupid. That just like me putting a gun to that man's and blowing their brains out. That's the way it went.

Madeleine Baran:
Jailhouse snitches are used all the time in jails and courtrooms all over the country. But exactly how often they're used, we don't know, because it's not tracked. I talked to a law professor at UC Irvine about this. Her name is Alexandra Natapoff. She studies the government's use of informants, including jailhouse snitches. She told me the way this works, it's like a business.

Alexandra Natapoff:
Everything is negotiated. In effect, we're running an enormous market. And so trading information is just one way that people navigate that market.

Madeleine Baran:
And in this market where information is traded, the value of that information often depends on the case. In a case with a lot of evidence, Natapoff told me, prosecutors often don't need or even want a snitch.

Alexandra Natapoff:
But we see, over and over and time and time again in a weak case, in a case where it's difficult to prove guilt, that jailhouse informants fill in the gap either because they come forward themselves entrepreneurially, because so many people in the jail system understand that if they come forward, they will be rewarded. Or because the government reaches out.

Madeleine Baran:
When prosecutors use snitches, there are some rules that they have to follow. If the case goes to trial, a prosecutor is required to disclose anything given or promised to a snitch in exchange for the Snitch's statement. And prosecutors are not allowed to use snitches at trial who they know are lying. That's true, not just of snitches, but of any witnesses.
Natapoff told me that's just a basic requirement of being a prosecutor.

Alexandra Natapoff:
So the prosecutor has a constitutional obligation not to use a witness who they know is committing perjury, in the same way that they have a constitutional obligation to disclose a benefit if they go to trial. The Supreme Court has told us over and over again that prosecutors are special. That it is not just their job to get convictions, but to do justice. That they are representatives of the government, of the sovereign.
And that, at the end of the day, the most important thing is for the prosecutor to proceed in an ethical manner that serves justice. And the truth is, we rely on that.

Madeleine Baran:
In court, Doug Evans has always maintained that as far as he knew, Frederick Veal and Maurice Hawkins were telling the truth when they said that Curtis had confessed. Evans and the sheriff, Ricky Banks, have both said in court that neither one of these men got anything in exchange for their statements. No money, no plea deal, no dropped charges, nothing.
I tried to ask Doug Evans about this, but he declined to comment. So I decided to give Ricky Banks a call. He's still the Sheriff of Leflore County.

Sherrif Banks:
Sheriff Banks.

Madeleine Baran:
Hi, Sheriff Banks. This is Madeleine Baran. I'm a reporter. It was good to talk to you

Sherrif Banks:
What you got going?

Madeleine Baran:
Yeah. So I wanted to give you a call to see if I could see what you could possibly remember about a man named Frederick Veal.

Sherrif Banks:
Yeah. Yeah, I know the name. He is just a small-time guy. He was in trouble, in and out, but it's small crimes. It wasn't nothing like murder or armed robbery or anything like that, but I hadn't heard from him in a good while.

Madeleine Baran:
Okay.

Sherrif Banks:
Had he done something upstate or something? Or what's going on?

Madeleine Baran:
No, not that I know of. No. I was wanting to just talk to you because of his involvement in the Curtis Flowers case.

Sherrif Banks:
Yeah. What about the Curtis Flowers case?

Madeleine Baran:
Do you remember him being in the jail? Because he's the guy who said that Curtis confessed to him in the jail?

Sherrif Banks:
No, I'd have to look back. So I know that there was an inmate during that time, that short time that we held Flowers, and I think it was an inmate that came forward and said he told him that he did the shooting.

Madeleine Baran:
So do you remember how Frederick Veal came to be in the cell with Curtis?

Sherrif Banks:
No, I don't.

Madeleine Baran:
Okay. And do you know if he got anything in exchange for his statement?

Sherrif Banks:
I do not know.

Madeleine Baran:
So we ended up tracking him down and he was saying that what had happened was that he was in jail and that he wanted to get out of jail. He was looking for a way to get out. And so he appealed to you, basically. And what he said is that you basically made him an offer. If you can go into the cell and get Curtis to admit to these murders, then you can get out.
And he said, I went in, but I actually didn't even ask Curtis. And then he said he came out and he told you, well, he didn't actually confess. And then what Frederick Veal is saying is what happened next is that he was in a room with yourself and with the district attorney, Doug Evans, and the three of you made up a story about Curtis confessing.

Sherrif Banks:
I hadn't made up a story about anything. I don't make up a story. I wouldn't be here if I made stories up. And I've been there since 1972, so.

Madeleine Baran:
No. So what do you make of him saying that?

Sherrif Banks:
I didn't meet with the DA and anybody else to discuss a statement that you're talking about.

Madeleine Baran:
Okay. So did you send him in, though, to begin with?

Sherrif Banks:
How long has that been? 20 years ago.

Madeleine Baran:
21 years ago. Yeah.

Sherrif Banks:
Yeah. I couldn't tell you what I said or not 20 years ago.

Madeleine Baran:
Okay.

Sherrif Banks:
I think you've got enough. So I'm not going to sit here and talk to you. You trying to put words in my mouth and I don't know whether they're true or not. Okay?

Madeleine Baran:
Yeah, no, I wouldn't-

Sherrif Banks:
I guess you're going to go back and if I testified or if he testified, then it'll be on the record. Okay?

Madeleine Baran:
... Yeah.

Sherrif Banks:
I got to go. I got to go to work. I ain't got time for the news report. Okay? I'll see you later. Bye.

Madeleine Baran:
Okay, thanks for talking to me.
So Doug Evans had lost his two snitches, but that didn't matter as much as you might think. Because, according to Doug Evans, Curtis Flowers confessed again to another inmate. This time it happened in Parchman Prison, and this new snitch wasn't like the other two because this snitch stuck around. He's testified in trial after trial, including Curtis's most recent one. If Curtis has a seventh trial, this guy will most likely be there.
And the story of what is going on with this snitch took us an entire year to uncover this snitch's name is Odell Hallmon. More about that after the break.
The story of how this new jailhouse informant came to be part of the Curtis Flowers case actually starts with his sister, a woman named Patricia Hallmon. Patricia lived in Winona. Back in 1996, she was 26 years old, and she was Curtis's next door neighbor. And a few weeks the murders at Tardy Furniture, she ended up telling an investigator all kinds of things, like that she saw Curtis on the morning of the murders running into his house like he was in a rage.
And that in the days before the murders, she'd overheard an argument between Curtis and his girlfriend. She said she'd heard Curtis say something to his girlfriend that she assumed was about his job at Tardy Furniture. She said, Curtis said, "Fuck everybody down there."
And when the trial came around, Patricia Hallmon testified to all of this as a witness for the prosecution. And she's testified in every trial since. Natalie and I spent weeks searching for Patricia Hallmon. We found out that she'd moved to Jackson, about an hour and a half from Winona.
And so, one day in September of last year, we went to talk to her.
Hi. It's Patricia? Hi. How's your morning going?

Patricia Hallman:
All right.

Madeleine Baran:
And right away, Patricia Hallmon started telling me things that were different from what she testified to during the Curtis Flowers trials.
Did you ever hear him talk about hurting people at the store or his job in a negative way?

Patricia Hallman:
No. No. No.

Madeleine Baran:
Like anything negative at work?

Patricia Hallman:
No. No, no. I ain't never heard that boy say nothing negative at work, never.

Madeleine Baran:
Or about work or anything?

Patricia Hallman:
No. No, ma'am? No. No. No, ma'am. I ain't fixing to lie for nobody. No ma'am. Can't talk about nobody murder nobody. No nothing going on his job. Ain't nobody said, and he ain't even act like no violent person. No ma'am, he did not.

Madeleine Baran:
Patricia told me that Curtis Flowers was a nice person. She called him the sweetest gentleman, the sweetest person you'd ever want to know.

Patricia Hallman:
He act like this sweetest gentleman. I'm talking a lovable, sweet of a gentleman. The sweetest person you want to know.

Madeleine Baran:
When I asked Patricia why her story had changed, why it was different from what she'd said in court. She didn't want to talk about it.

Patricia Hallman:
I don't really have nothing, really nothing else to say. I'm just tired. They need to go on and wrap this stuff up and leave it alone. I'm tired.

Madeleine Baran:
In Curtis's first trial, Curtis's lawyers tried to challenge Patricia on the stand. But unlike when Patricia talked to me, in court Patricia just stuck to her story. It seemed like there wasn't anything the defense could do to get her to crack.
But then one day, as Curtis's lawyers were preparing for his second trial, they got a letter. And this letter said that Patricia Hallmon's story was a lie. And the letter came from Patricia's own brother, a man named Odell Hallmon.
The letter was a single page written in neat cursive on a sheet of lined paper that had been singed at the edges, like a pirate's treasure map. "My name is Odell Hallmon," it read. "And I'm writing in concern of the case you was handling, the case of Curtis Flowers. My sister was a witness in that case." In this letter, Odell Hallmon said that his sister Patricia's testimony was something, the two of them had cooked up together to try to get some reward money.
The letter was addressed to Curtis's lawyer at the time, a man named Chokwe Lumumba. "It started at the county jail," Odell wrote. "I had a fine to pay off and I didn't have the money. So I told her to tell the polices she knew who committed these murders so she could get that $30,000 and get me out."
Odell went on. "I'm truly sorry everything happened this way. I never thought Curtis would be found guilty. All I was thinking about at that time was myself. Mr. Lumumba, I'm willing to do anything in my power to make up for what I did. I'm truly sorry for what me and my sister did."
The letter ended, "My sister is a born liar. She's the worstest child my mother have. She just like me, do anything for money. Mr. Lumumba, I hope that I can be of some use to you. I never thought things would've gotten out of hand like this. Thanks for listening."
The defense did listen, and they put Odell Hallmon on the stand to testify at Curtis's second trial in 1999. Odell told the jurors just what he'd said in the letter, and he said that he decided to come forward because, "My conscience was bothering me."
But it wasn't long before Odell Hallmon switched sides.

John Johnson:
Today's date is May the seventh of year 2001. The location is in Carroll Montgomery County jail facility in Vaiden, Mississippi. And the following is a voluntary statement from Odell Hallmon.

Madeleine Baran:
I got a copy of a video that was recorded by law enforcement in a jail in Vaiden, Mississippi, in May of 2001. It's an interview of Odell Hallmon by the District Attorney's investigator John Johnson.
It had been only two or three years since Odell Hallmon had written to the lawyer for Curtis Flowers offering to help the defense.
Now in 2001, Odell Hallmon was offering that same help, this time to the prosecution.

John Johnson:
And I would point out that this statement is free and voluntary on your part. Is that correct?

Odell Hallman:
Yes, sir.

Madeleine Baran:
In this video, Odell Hallmon is sitting in a chair on the right of the frame and John Johnson is on the opposite side. Odell's 25 at the time. He's a big guy with wide-set eyes, a chin-strap beard, and a buzz cut. He's wearing an orange jumpsuit and his hands are cuffed in front of him.
He keeps twisting his fingers together and darting his eyes around the room. John Johnson is wearing a button-down, short-sleeve shirt and tie. He's wearing glasses and holding a stack of papers. He has a legal pad open on his lap. It's 11:33 in the morning on May 7th, 2001.

John Johnson:
We are contacting us in volunteering this statement. Is that correct? We haven't promised you any reward or good treatment or nothing, is that correct?

Odell Hallman:
No, sir.

Madeleine Baran:
And here's what Odell told them. He said that he'd lied when he testified for the defense. He said that, actually, his sister Patricia had always been telling the truth about Curtis. And he said the reason that he helped the defense, the reason that he testified in the second trial that his sister was a liar, was because Curtis asked him to when they were hanging out together in prison.

Odell Hallman:
I asked him what was in it for me and he told me, he said, "Man, I can get you some money and while you here, I can take care of you while you here locked up and I can get you some money when you get out."

Madeleine Baran:
I can get you some money, take care of you while you are here locked up.

Odell Hallman:
Just to tell them folks what he wanted me to tell him. So we sat there and he made up a good lie and I just told them.

John Johnson:
When he said that he would take care of you, cigarettes were somewhat of a commodity while in that facility. Is that correct?

Odell Hallman:
Yes, sir.

John Johnson:
And they were hard to come by and he was providing cigarettes from you, you indicated, is that right?

Odell Hallman:
Right, right.

John Johnson:
And you said that he had money, was able to get cigarettes where you were not able to.

Odell Hallman:
[inaudible 00:37:23] sir.

Madeleine Baran:
And not just cigarettes. Odell said Curtis had promised to give him some money once he got out of prison.

John Johnson:
And what else did he say as far as money or reward?

Odell Hallman:
Yeah, he told me, he said he got thousands and thousands of dollars out there.

Madeleine Baran:
Thousands and thousands of dollars.

Odell Hallman:
He was telling me, he said, he said, I can give you about $15,000.

Madeleine Baran:
I can get you about $15,000 once you get out of here.

Odell Hallman:
Money at the times, I can do anything for it. You say this, that's what it was.

Madeleine Baran:
You know, money at the time. I can do anything for it.

Odell Hallman:
Seen nothing better way to get it.

John Johnson:
But basically going back in a review of this, you're just admitting that you lied and worked with Curtis Flowers and made up a story to try to discredit your sister's testimony. Is that correct?

Odell Hallman:
Yes, sir. I lied. I did that.

Madeleine Baran:
After 10 minutes the interview was over.

John Johnson:
We only wanted the truth. Is that correct?

Odell Hallman:
The truth.

John Johnson:
Well, that will conclude the statement and the time is now 11:48 AM.

Madeleine Baran:
But then, three hours later, for some reason they did a second interview with Odell Hallmon. And when they turned the recorder back on, Odell was sitting in the same room in the same chair. He was wearing the same orange scrubs. John Johnson was still there.

John Johnson:
The location is in Carroll Montgomery County Regional Jail facility in Vaiden. Present is Odell Hallmon.

Madeleine Baran:
I don't know what happened between these two recordings, but apparently someone contacted Odell's lawyer, a man named Lee Bailey.

John Johnson:
Mr. Hallmon, you're represented by your attorney here today, Mr. Lee Bailey. And you have contacted us through your attorney indicating that you want to give a statement as to what occurred between you and Curtis Flowers. Is that true?

Odell Hallman:
Yes, sir.

Madeleine Baran:
The second time around, Odell didn't just say that Curtis had asked him to lie about his sister. Now the story was much more elaborate.
Odell laid out a whole psychodrama between himself and Curtis. Two men locked up, each trying to get something, each trying to get away with something, neither of them sure whom to trust.
Odell said he was angry, that Curtis still hadn't paid him the money. Odell said he even confronted Curtis about it.

Odell Hallman:
I said, man, you promise me the money if I just get up there and lie on my sister. You going back on your word.

Madeleine Baran:
I said, "Man, you just promised me the money if I just get up there and lie on my sister. You're going back on your word."
And Curtis replied, "What is a man's word?"

Odell Hallman:
He said, "What is a man's word?"

Madeleine Baran:
And from there, Odell described how he and Curtis would pass notes back and forth to each other in their cells. Cryptic notes. In one Curtis told him how weak his conscience was.

Odell Hallman:
How weak his conscience was.

Madeleine Baran:
And Odell started to feel uneasy. He started to think maybe the guy that I helped really is a murderer. He tried to ask Curtis if he killed the people at Tardy Furniture.

Odell Hallman:
So you keep on telling me this and that, but tell if you really did it? He'd just smile at me. Just smile at me every time.

Madeleine Baran:
Curtis just smiled at him. He smiled every time.
One day, Odell looked Curtis straight in the eye and told him, "Curtis, man, I see death in your eyes."
Curtis got mad. He jumped up. He said, "What are you trying to do? Are you trying to tell people I killed those folks? Is that what you're doing?"
And Odell said, "Well, Curtis, you can answer a question for me. Did you really kill them?"

Odell Hallman:
I said, did you really kill them?

Madeleine Baran:
Curtis didn't answer.

Odell Hallman:
He didn't answer me that day.

Madeleine Baran:
And then Curtis fell silent. Odell waited three days.

Odell Hallman:
I waited for like, three days.

Madeleine Baran:
And then a note arrived. It was from Curtis.
Curtis's note said, "Homie, my man, that'd be a fool to tell on himself.
And with that, Odell realized that this man he'd been helping, Curtis Flowers, was a murderer.

Odell Hallman:
He's told me. I know that. I know he did.

John Johnson:
You're saying he told you that he did, but he did it in an indirect way?

Odell Hallman:
Right.

Madeleine Baran:
And after Odell Hallmon had laid out this whole story, the interview was over.

John Johnson:
All right. This approximately three minutes after three, and that concludes the statement.

Madeleine Baran:
And Odell turns his head, he looks straight at the camera, he blinks, the screen goes black.
In the first version of the story, Odell had said he'd lied about his sister. In the second version, Odell had said that Curtis had implied he'd killed the people at Tardy Furniture.
But there was another version of Odell's story, a third version. This third version of Odell's story came in the form of a letter written by Odell to the District Attorney, Doug Evans. And this letter would prove much more valuable than anything Odell Hallmon had said in those videos.
I have a copy of this letter. It's handwritten in a neat, slanting cursive. This letter begins, "To Doug Evans, on the case of Curtis Flowers. My role in the case, and everything he told me, this I swear.
In the letter, Odell wrote, "One day in the day room, Curtis told me that he had a lot on his mind and he couldn't keep living like this. He said he would kill himself. And I said, if you was innocent, you would not be thinking like that. And he said, Homeboy, that's the problem. I'm not innocent."
At Curtis's third trial in 2004, Odell Hallmon took the stand for the prosecution. The other snitches, Frederick Veal and Maurice Hawkins, were gone. But Odell, the new snitch, was ready. He told the jury that Curtis Flowers had confessed to him. And the District Attorney, Doug Evans, said the same thing about Odell that he said about the earlier snitches, that Odell was credible. And that he didn't get anything in exchange for his statement.
And Odell's told that same story about Curtis confessing to him in every trial since. I talked to the defense lawyer who cross-examined Odell Hallmon. His name is Ray Charles Carter, and he was Curtis's lawyer from trials three through six. Ray Charles Carter told me, "Odell didn't just say that Curtis confessed to him. By the latest trial in 2010, Odell was spinning this whole story of personal redemption."

Ray Charles Carter:
Did he tell you he got his life together? He's not what he used to be and all this kind of crap. I don't believe any of it, but he felt like he needed to say it.

Madeleine Baran:
On cross-examination, Ray Charles Carter asked Odell, "When did you start telling the truth? When did you become honest?"
And Odell told him he's trying to become a better person because, Odell said, "I know there's a God in heaven, and I know that I got to see him soon because I'm going through a medical crisis right now. So I want to get myself right with God."
Odell said, "I got a conscience, Mr. Charles, I know I do. Lord knows I do."
This medical crisis that Odell was referring to was that he had been diagnosed as HIV positive. This was in 2010. And by 2010, being HIV positive, for most people in the United States, was no longer a death sentence. But Odell certainly made it seem like it was.

Ray Charles Carter:
Dying of AIDS too, and I felt like that was just clearly trying to make them feel sympathetic, and I think he might even say it. I wouldn't be on own deathbed basically and coming here and lie. I think he was one of the biggest liars, I've met in my life.
And I kind of scanned the jury, if I remember correctly, because I wanted to see if they were perceiving him as a fool. You know what? Or whether they actually believed him. They actually sat there and looked at him with seriousness as if they actually believed him, which defies logic to me.
And that told me a story right there, too. We have no chance. If they're not rejecting this guy, we can't possibly have a chance.

Madeleine Baran:
We talked to six of the 12 jurors who sat on Curtis's latest trial, and none of them had anything negative to say about Odell Hallmon's testimony. This is a juror from Trial Six named Janelle Johnson.

Janelle Johnson:
I believed him. I don't think he had anything... He didn't have anything to gain by coming in there. I believed him. To me, I feel like maybe he was trying to do the right thing, actually.

Madeleine Baran:
If the case against Curtis Flowers had stronger evidence, like DNA or people who witnessed the actual murders, then a snitch like Odell Hallmon probably wouldn't have as much value to the prosecutor. And it wouldn't matter as much whether Odell was telling the truth.
But right now, Odell Hallmon's testimony is the only piece of so-called direct evidence against Curtis Flowers. Everything else the prosecutor has is circumstantial. The route that Curtis supposedly walked on the morning of the murders, the gun that Curtis supposedly stole and used to kill all four people, none of that adds up to 100% proof. Far from it. The prosecutor has no evidence that proved that Curtis was even at the furniture store that morning, much less that he pulled the trigger.
The best evidence the DA, Doug Evans, has is the word of one man, Odell Hallmon.
And so, I decided to find out everything I could about Odell Hallmon. One of the first things I learned was that almost no one calls him Odell Hallmon. Most people just call him Cookie. His sister, Patricia, told me why.

Patricia Hallman:
Back in the day, Cookie Monster from Sesame Street. And he was eating all the cookies and stuff. Ate nothing but cookies, so we called him Cookie Monster.

Madeleine Baran:
Oh, really?

Patricia Hallman:
Yeah.

Madeleine Baran:
Like when he was a little kid?

Patricia Hallman:
Uh-huh, when he a little kid, it came on up in him. Cookie. Yeah, we called him Cookie Monster. Well, we called him Cookie Monster. And as he grew, they took the monster off and just said Cookie.

Madeleine Baran:
One person who knew Odell well was Joanne Young. You might remember her from episode two. She's the woman who helped me out when I was interviewing Roy Harris, the man who testified about seeing Curtis on the route that morning. Joanne has actually known Odell since the day he was born. She helped deliver him.

Joanne Young:
He was the most beautiful big baby I ever seen. Pretty. Oh, he was handsome. Everybody would come off the street, would just come there and look at that baby. But he was spoiled. I remember when I used to see him in the store, he would get whatever he want. If he cried for it, he got it.

Madeleine Baran:
So he's spoiled?

Joanne Young:
Yes. Not only his mother and auntie spoil him. Other people would spoil him.

Madeleine Baran:
Why?

Joanne Young:
Because he was a cute fat little old, chubby little old thing.

Madeleine Baran:
But Joanne said that as Odell got older, he turned bad.

Joanne Young:
When he got teenage he started getting in trouble. I just couldn't believe it. Then I thought about it. Yeah, because he never worked for nothing. So that's what I figured, that what it was.

Madeleine Baran:
When Odell was a teenager, he started getting arrested and going to jail. And Joanne would run into him every time he got out. And every time she'd give him a good talking to.

Joanne Young:
I said, "Oh, you finally done got out, huh? And you going to straighten yourself up?"
"Oh, Miss Joanne, yeah, I'm going to be good. I'm going to be good. I'll be good."
I said, "No, you ain't going to be good." I said, "Odell, let me tell you one thing." I said, "Life is too short." I said, "Odell, straighten your life up."

Madeleine Baran:
But Odell didn't straighten up, and Joanne said he didn't really need to. Joanne said that Odell seemed to get away with a lot. He would commit crimes, he would be sent away, and then before you'd know it, he'd be back in town up to his old tricks, causing trouble again.
Joanne said she could never figure out how exactly Odell never seemed to get punished all that hard. The District Attorney, Doug Evans, certainly had a reputation for being tough on crime. But when it came to Odell, she said, the rules seemed different.

Joanne Young:
Odell got away with everything. He got privilege. A lot of privilege.

Madeleine Baran:
Privilege. 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.
We put the videos of Odell Hallmon's two interviews with the DA's investigator on our website. You can check them out At inthedarkpodcast.org.
We also have all kinds of other videos and photos and documents on the site.