In The Dark The New Yorker
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- True Crime
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In the Dark, hosted by Madeleine Baran, is an award-winning investigative-journalism podcast that started in 2016. Its first season looked at the mysterious abduction of Jacob Wetterling in rural Minnesota and the lack of accountability that sheriffs face when they fail to solve cases. Season 2 examined the case of Curtis Flowers, who was tried six times for the same crime. In 2020, In the Dark released a special report on the coronavirus pandemic in the Mississippi Delta. In 2023, In the Dark joined The New Yorker and Condé Nast. “The Runaway Princesses,” In the Dark’s first collaboration with a New Yorker staff writer, is a four-part series that asks why the women in Dubai’s royal family keep trying to run away. Season 3 of In the Dark is currently in production.In the Dark is a two-time Peabody Award winner and, in 2019, became the first podcast to win a George Polk Award, one of the top honors in investigative journalism. The program has also received an Edward R. Murrow Award and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award.
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S2 E1: July 16, 1996
On the morning of July 16, 1996, someone walked into a furniture store in downtown Winona, Mississippi, and murdered four employees. Each was shot in the head. It was perhaps the most shocking crime the small town had ever seen. Investigators charged a man named Curtis Flowers with the murders. What followed was a two-decade legal odyssey in which Flowers was tried six times for the same crime. He remains on death row, though some people believe he's innocent. For the second season of In the Dark, we spent a year digging into the Flowers case. We found a town divided by race and a murder conviction supported by questionable evidence. And it all began that summer morning in 1996 with a horrifying crime scene that left investigators puzzled.
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S2 E2: The Route
The case against Curtis Flowers relies heavily on three threads of evidence: the route he allegedly walked the morning of the murders, the gun that investigators believe he used, and the people he supposedly confessed to in jail. In this episode, we meet the witnesses who said they saw Flowers walking through downtown Winona, Mississippi, the morning of the murders. Some of their stories now waver on key details.
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S2 E3: The Gun
Investigators never found the gun used to kill four people at Tardy Furniture. Yet the gun, and the bullets matched to it, became a key piece of evidence against Curtis Flowers. In this episode, we examine the strange histories of the gun and the man who owned it.
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S2 E4: The Confessions
Over the years, three inmates have claimed that Curtis Flowers confessed to them that he killed four people at the Tardy Furniture store. But they've all changed their stories at one time or another. In this episode, we investigate who's really telling the truth.
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S2 E5: Privilege
No witness has been more important to the prosecution's case against Curtis Flowers than Odell Hallmon. He testified in four trials that Flowers had confessed to him while the two men were in prison together. Hallmon has an astonishingly long criminal history that includes repeated charges for drug dealing, assault, and robbery. So how reliable is his testimony and did he receive anything in exchange for it? In this episode, we investigate the veracity of the prosecution's star witness.
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S2 E6: Punishment
Odell Hallmon, the state's key witness in the Curtis Flowers case, is serving three consecutive life sentences. We wondered what he might say now that there are no deals to cut, and he will spend the rest of his days in prison. Would he stick to his story that Flowers had confessed to the Tardy Furniture murders? We wrote him letters and sent him a friend request on Facebook. Weeks went by and we heard nothing. And then, one day, he wrote back.
Customer Reviews
This pod cast is great & everyone should listen
I'm sooooo glade you brought this out to light , I've heard of this case in the media throughout many years , but never heard it at this depth , thank you for showing the world about how many cases can go all types of wrong with all the wrong authority involved & all the people who helped put CF away should pay for their actions . This goes to show racism is still a real thing ! I've heard all the episodes so far & all I can say is woooow ! Thank you madaline & her team !
Season one WoW
I think if podcasts had been a thing in the 90’s this podcast would have solved the case.
Season 2
Doug Evans belongs in prison, and we also need to stop treating the people who lied on Curtis Flowers (under oath) like they are, or were victims. They aren’t. They weren’t. They lied, in some cases for their own selfish desires, and therefore DIRECTLY helped Doug Evans put CF away. He couldn’t have done it alone, and he didn’t. The problem is deeper than Doug Evans.