The defense team of Curtis Giovanni Flowers attempted to discredit investigators’ methods during his murder trial Wednesday.
After the prosecution rested its case, the defense asked that the case be dismissed based on a lack of evidence.
“They have proved there was a case of capital murder,” defense attorney Alison Steiner said. “(The prosecution) has not put on sufficient evidence that it was (committed by) Curtis Flowers.”
Circuit Judge Joseph Loper ruled against the motion for a directed verdict.
Flowers is charged with murder in the 1996 shooting deaths of Tardy Furniture owner Bertha Tardy, 59, and employees Carmen Rigby, 45, Robert Golden, 42, and Derrick “BoBo” Stewart, 16. Each victim was shot in the head with a .380-caliber automatic inside the store, where Flowers had worked.
Three prior convictions of Flowers in this case have been thrown out by the Mississippi Supreme Court, and twice juries have been unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
The defense called Mike McSparrin, a fingerprint analysis expert at the Mississippi Crime Laboratory. McSparrin said no fingerprint evidence submitted to him had shown ties to Flowers. The defense asked if he was given prints of anyone else to compare them with. He said he was asked only to check the latent prints against Flowers and Doyle Simpson, the owner of a .380 automatic that was stolen on the day of the slaying.
He also said he knew the investigators and believed they would have done their best to collect evidence adequately.
“There’s nothing unusual about a crime with no prints,” he said.
Steve Byrd, the second firearms specialist from the crime lab to testify, said that unlike David Balash, he could not definitively link bullets fired from Simpson’s weapon and bullets found at the crime scene. He said the bullets do have similar characteristics.
The defense team also attacked the collection methods of the evidence. Byrd said it appeared that the evidence collection process had been acceptable and did not hinder his investigation.
James Taylor Williams, a highway patrolman who assisted in the investigation, said he does not recall seeing bloody footprints at the scene of the murder. The footprints have been a focal point of the trial, as they were found to have been made by a pair of Grant Hill Filas. A shoe box for that shoe was found in Flowers’ girlfriend’s home.
The implication, as the defense has attempted to prove throughout the case, is that someone may have made the footprints after the murder had been committed.
Essie Ruth Campbell, Flowers’ aunt, said that she saw Doyle Simpson’s car on two occasions on the morning of the slayings from Winona Manor. She said the vehicle was too far away to identify a driver.
The first sighting happened around 9:30 to 10 a.m. She said the vehicle was heading west.
She said she was sure it was Simpson’s car but could not give details about it, such as whether the windows were tinted.
Latarsha Blissett, a defense witness, said she was picked up by investigators and questioned at the Greenwood Highway Patrol station about the case.
Blissett is related to Clemmie Fleming, who testified earlier that she saw Flowers running from behind Tardy Furniture on the day of the shootings. However, Blissett said Wednesday that she didn’t know at the time of the questioning why the investigators had picked her up.
She said they were somehow aware that she was interested in purchasing a mobile home.
She also said she was repeatedly asked if she knew “what $30,000 could do.” There was a $30,000 reward offered for information in the case.
“They asked me if I knew Curtis’ shoe size,” Blissett said. “I told them I couldn’t help them in that area.”
Prosecutor Doug Evans asked if she believed the investigators would have offered her $30,000 for information in regard to Flowers’ shoe size. He also asked if she thought the investigators had used “psychic abilities” to determine she was looking for a mobile home.
“He could have been following me around,” Blissett said. “That’s what investigators do.”
