Theme Of In The Dark Podcast

During this class, I have learned a lot about murder in American history. Some important themes I wanted to include in my project are topics of racism, white supremacy, religion, and capital punishment in America. These are all relevant to the Curtis Flowers case and what I’ve learned from listening to the “In the Dark” podcast. For the creative part of this assignment, I decided that I wanted to show what this case looked like to me through a painting; and in my mind that looked like a lot of jumbled-up facts, chaos, and evidence. On the morning of July 16th,1996, four people were shot and killed while working at Tardy Furniture, a local furniture shop, in Winona, Mississippi. This was none other than tragic and mysterious. A crime like

All because of D. A. Doug Evans, who seemed to have a death wish for Curtis’, trying his case six times in an attempt to put him on death row. Capital punishment or the death penalty was something we also spent some time with this semester. The Death penalty has always been something that the United States has been back and forth about. In the early 1960s, it was opposed by many people due to unethical reasoning and because it was thought of as an ineffective way of deterring crime. This could’ve been because the 60s and 70s were a time of peace, love, and protesting war. Capital punishment wasn’t used as often at the time and has changed in many ways since the 1960s. Unfortunately, the death penalty wasn’t something Curtis Flowers was able to escape, at least not until he was able to find a way to drive D.A. Doug Evans away from prosecuting

The star witness, Odell Hallmond even admitted to this being true after interviewing with the podcast, In the Dark . A few others admitted this as well. I decided to include this in my art piece along with the murder weapon, the Tardy Furniture sign, evidence like the bloody shoe print, and even the name of the other suspect who was just so easily brushed over because he was willing to give a false statement. You will notice I have a lot of question marks, and some string and pins going over the area in the center. This area is thought to represent the tunnel that was discovered during the podcast. The silhouette and question marks are because we don’t know who did it. The pins and string are to represent a crime board. They connect to show how my mind kept looping through and thinking about the chaos and mystery of this trial.

To leave off I wanted to mention that I noticed lots of talk of religion from the victims’ families to the defense and his family. God only knows the truth, and like Curtis’s sister said, “god will prevail,” and that he did. He brought Curtis to justice because of the hope, faith, and prayer of many people throughout this ongoing case. It was even mentioned that a Christian man like Curtis wouldn’t do something like this which made me think of how towards the beginning