In The Dark The New Yorker

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.

As sex workers flee Sheikh Mohammed’s U.K. estate bruised and weeping, no one is held to account. British authorities look the other way after one of the sheikh’s own daughters tries to escape."The Runaway Princesses" is a four-part narrative series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. Subscribers to The New Yorker have early, ad-free access to all episodes. Visit newyorker.com/dark to subscribe.

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. 

Princess Latifa is desperate to help her sister Shamsa, who’s been captured, drugged, and imprisoned on her father’s orders. She makes a plan to flee Dubai."The Runaway Princesses" is a four-part narrative series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. Subscribers to The New Yorker have early, ad-free access to all episodes. Visit newyorker.com/dark to subscribe.

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. 

Latifa has made it to international waters, but she’s not out of danger. Her father has powerful forces at his command."The Runaway Princesses" is a four-part narrative series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. Subscribers to The New Yorker have early, ad-free access to all episodes. Visit newyorker.com/dark to subscribe.