Review of In the Dark, Season Two: The Case of Curtis Flowers Rating *****
I cover a lot of wrongful conviction stories on this site. I’m drawn to the sense of injustice. If it’s a story like Framed, where I’m the one investigating the case, I have three goals: free the wrongly imprisoned, hold those responsible accountable, and spell out where things went wrong in hopes that others will learn from the mistakes or misdeeds that led to the wrongful conviction. No matter what format the story is told—book, documentary, or podcast—once it goes out on the internet, it stays there forever. The people singled out in these stories have to live with the consequences of their mistakes, indifference, and questionable actions for all to see.
The podcast In the Dark: The Case of Curtis Flowers covers the story of a man who spent more than twenty years in prison for a crime he has always maintained he did not commit. The crime involved the murder of four employees of the Tardy Furniture company in Winona, Mississippi. And like many wrongful conviction stories, the people whose decisions shaped the case have never acknowledged any mistakes or taken responsibility for the outcome.
The podcast makes clear that the two individuals whose actions most influenced the case were District Attorney Doug Evans and investigator John Johnson. You won’t hear much from either man. According to the podcast, both declined repeated interview requests. Like other prosecutors in cases still under appeal, Evans has said he cannot comment publicly. There is some truth to that. But in this instance, the same prosecutor tried the same man for the same crime six times. Some convictions were overturned on appeal. Some trials ended with hung juries. Still, Evans pursued a death sentence using witnesses whose statements were later contradicted or recanted. The podcast documents multiple instances where Evans’ statements to the jury were contradicted by witness accounts or evidence.
The podcast also highlights serious concerns about Evans’ judgment in other cases. As reported in In the Dark, months before the Flowers case, Evans prosecuted a man for raping an elderly woman with dementia based solely on the statements of one person. The podcast found that Evans proceeded with the trial before the rape kit results were completed—results that later showed no evidence a rape had occurred. The series also examines Evans’ long‑standing pattern of striking Black prospective jurors at a disproportionately high rate, a pattern noted in multiple appeals.
Then there is investigator John Johnson. Several witnesses told the podcast that Johnson pressured them, suggested details, or implied they might receive a $30,000 reward if they cooperated. The podcast also reports that Johnson dismissed or ignored evidence pointing to other possible suspects. All of this shaped the case presented to the jury.
The case against Curtis Flowers was entirely circumstantial. There was no DNA or physical evidence linking him to the crime. Over the course of eleven episodes, host Madeleine Baran systematically examines the evidence used to secure the original conviction—what the series refers to as the gun, the route, and the jailhouse confession.
Starting with the gun: Prosecutor Doug Evans alleged that on the day of the murders, Curtis Flowers broke into a car and stole the gun used in the killings. The gun was never found. The owner of the gun reported it stolen that day, but the podcast points out inconsistencies in the prosecution’s theory. Evans told the jury that Flowers knew the gun was in the man’s car. Yet according to the gun’s owner, the only reason the gun was in the car was because he planned to have it cleaned that day. The podcast raises the question: how would Flowers have known that? And why wasn’t the gun’s owner considered a suspect, given that reporting a gun stolen can conveniently distance someone from a crime involving that weapon?
The next part of the prosecution’s theory involved Flowers walking a specific route from his home to the car where he allegedly stole the gun, then to Tardy Furniture, and then back home. To support this, investigator John Johnson relied on witnesses whose accounts later changed. When the podcast team tracked down these “route witnesses,” several said Johnson suggested they might be eligible for a $30,000 reward if they provided helpful testimony. None ever received such a reward. The podcast reports that Johnson denied making such promises at trial.
The last part of the evidence is the most troubling. Evans relied heavily on the testimony of Odell “Cookie” Hallmon, a jailhouse informant who claimed Flowers confessed to him. Hallmon later recanted, telling the podcast he lied in every statement he ever gave about Flowers. The podcast also documents that Hallmon received favorable treatment in multiple criminal cases, including reduced charges and lenient plea deals. After receiving these benefits, Hallmon went on to murder three people in 2016—a fact that casts an even darker shadow over the prosecution’s reliance on his testimony.
One of the more disheartening aspects of this case was the indifference shown by those involved in the prosecution and by prison officials. According to the podcast team, prison authorities repeatedly denied their requests to interview Flowers. When Flowers’ mother died, Evans argued against Flowers’ request for a temporary release to attend the funeral.
Another factor that emerges clearly in the podcast is the racial bias at play throughout the case. In one interview, a white man — identified in the series as someone involved in one of the trials that ended in a hung jury — made the flippant comment that Black jurors “won’t convict a Black defendant.” What never seemed to occur to him was the obvious unfairness of an all‑white jury hearing a case against a Black defendant. No matter what evidence is discredited, there are and will continue to be white residents in Winona who will always believe that Curtis Flowers is guilty.
This podcast was released in 2019. It ends with Flowers’ sixth conviction still under appeal. Since then, all charges against Curtis Flowers have been dismissed. The podcast’s reporting brought national attention to the case and contributed to the scrutiny that ultimately led to Flowers’ release.
As for the people whose decisions shaped the case, little has changed. Doug Evans left office in 2020 after nearly three decades as District Attorney, but he has never faced formal consequences for his role in the Flowers prosecutions. Investigator John Johnson has continued working in law enforcement and has not publicly addressed the concerns raised in the podcast. Their careers moved forward, even as Curtis Flowers spent more than twenty years behind bars.