Rank #1: S1 E3: The One Who Got Away
The closest you can get to a conversation with Jacob Wetterling about his abduction is to talk to Jared Scheierl. Scheierl was walking home from an ice skating rink in Cold Spring in January 1989 when a man who turned out to be Danny Heinrich forced him into a car, assaulted him, and let him go, uttering some chilling parting words: "If they come close to finding out who I am, I'll find you and kill you." That was nine months before Jacob's abduction. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
Sep 13 2016
44mins
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Rank #2: 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. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
May 01 2018
42mins
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Rank #3: 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. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
May 08 2018
47mins
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Rank #4: S1 E4: The Circus
The Wetterling abduction story kept getting bigger as the case served as a conduit for public fear and grief. Capitalizing on a growing sense that pedophiles lurked in every shadow, the likes of Maury Povich and Geraldo Rivera joined the cause with sensational retellings of the crime and its consequences. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
Sep 20 2016
36mins
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Rank #5: 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. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
May 01 2018
52mins
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Rank #6: S1 E5: Person of Interest
Dan Rassier now wishes he'd insisted that police search his family's St. Joseph farm top to bottom the night Jacob Wetterling was abducted. That way, they would have known there was nothing to find. And it would have been harder for them to come back 21 years later to search with backhoes and declare him a "person of interest" in the case. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
Sep 27 2016
47mins
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Rank #7: 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. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
May 15 2018
52mins
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Rank #8: S2 E10: Discovery
Prosecutors have always said that Curtis Flowers was the only serious suspect in the Tardy Furniture investigation. But we found a document showing that another man, Willie James Hemphill, had also been questioned just days after the murders. Who was he? Why was he questioned? When we finally found Hemphill, living in Indianapolis, he had some very surprising things to say about the case. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
Jun 26 2018
1hr 4mins
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Rank #9: S1 E6: Stranger Danger
In the 1970s and early '80s, missing children weren't considered a policing priority. You couldn't even enter missing child information into the FBI's national crime database. But that changed quickly. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
Oct 04 2016
36mins
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Rank #10: 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. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
May 29 2018
43mins
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Rank #11: 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. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
May 22 2018
48mins
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Rank #12: Coronavirus in the Delta E1: Greenville
A storm hits Greenville just in time for Easter. Two pastors and a mayor clash over how to do church during a pandemic. Support journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
May 01 2020
40mins
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Rank #13: S1 E7: This Quiet Place
Soon after the abduction and murder of Jacob Wetterling in 1989, Stearns County sheriff's investigators came face to face with his killer, Danny Heinrich, who would confess to the crime 27 years later. Then they let him go. It wasn't the first time that had happened in Stearns County. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
Oct 11 2016
40mins
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Rank #14: Coronavirus in the Delta: The Trailer
A new limited-run series from In the Dark, reporting on Covid-19 in the Mississippi Delta. Episodes every Thursday, beginning April 30. Support journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
Apr 23 2020
3mins
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Rank #15: S2 E11: The End
For the last episode of the season, we went to meet Jeffery Armstrong, who, a few years after Curtis Flowers first went to prison, found what might have been a key piece of evidence. What he found -- and where he found it -- offers hints that someone else may have committed the Tardy Furniture murders. Armstrong turned the evidence into the cops. And then, he says, it disappeared. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
Jul 03 2018
36mins
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