Former death-row inmate Curtis Flowers dies amid ongoing investigation

Curtis Flowers, 56, was discovered dead in Montgomery County, prompting an ongoing investigation by the coroner’s office. Flowers had been at the center of a high-profile Mississippi murder case that began in 1996 when four people were shot at Tardy Furniture in Winona. District Attorney Doug Evans prosecuted him six times, each trial ending in a hung jury or a later-overturned conviction, until a death-sentence was finally imposed.

In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that Evans had deliberately excluded Black jurors, leading to Flowers’ release on bail. The state’s attorney general later dismissed the capital murder charges, and Mississippi awarded Flowers $500,000 for wrongful imprisonment. A podcast by American Public Media examined the case’s racial bias and suggested alternative suspects. The coroner, Allan Pratt, has not yet released the cause of death.