Flowers’ cellmate: ‘He told me he killed those people’

WINONA – The State’s first witness Tuesday morning said Curtis Flowers confessed to him that he killed the four victims at Tardy Furniture on July 16, 1996. Odell Hallmon, currently an inmate with the Mississippi Department of Corrections, and a former cellmate of Flowers, said while the two were locked up together at Parchman in 1997, Flowers told him “he did it.”

To remove any motives Hallmon may have had for coming forward with his admission, District Attorney Doug Evans asked Hallmon to explain why he was in jail and who sent him there. Hallmon said he was incarcerated for drug possession and that “Mr. Doug Evans” put him there.

Dressed in his prison clothes, Hallmon told the court he’d known Flowers for more than 20 years and in previous testimony, he tried to discredit the testimony of his sister, Patricia Odell Hallmon. Patricia testified at all six trials that she saw Flowers around 4:30 a.m. the morning of the murders.

Patricia said she and Flowers were neighbors, living in the same apartment complex, and as she left her home for her morning walk, Flowers was sitting on his porch smoking a cigarette.

Patricia also said Flowers was wearing Fila Grant Hill tennis shoes, which is a crucial piece of evidence for the prosecution.

Hallmon said he initially told prosecutors he lied on his sister because Flowers promised him cigarettes and “thousands of dollars,” if he would do so.

“Nicotine is an addiction,” Hallmon said. “And Curtis Flowers was the only one in our unit that had cigarettes. It’ll play a mind game on you. All I had my mind on was trying to keep up my habit. Smoking was a habit.”

Hallmon said he finally came forward because his mother “was on him everyday” because he lied on his sister.

“They kicked me to the curb,” Hallmon said later of his family. “When I told my momma what I did, that was it.”

During the cross-examination, defense attorney Ray Charles Carter questioned Hallmon’s motives by asking him if he was more loyal to his friends than to his family. Hallmon said it depended on the circumstances.

But Hallmon insisted that he was now facing a medical crisis and he “didn’t want to leave this earth knowing that [he] lied on people. I want to better myself,” he said. “I want to get myself right with God.”

Hallmon later admitted, with Carter objecting, that he was HIV-positive.

For more than a half hour Carter grilled Hallmon as to why he would lie for another inmate, Flowers, who at the time was on Death Row. Hallmon said he and Flowers were “best friends” and all they had to talk to was each other in Unit 32 at Parchman.

Carter also introduced into evidence two letters that Hallmon wrote to Flowers’ mother and his attorney apologizing for incriminating Flowers several years ago.

Hallmon said Flowers wrote those letters and asked him to rewrite them in his handwriting. Hallmon said those were Flowers’ words and he simply copied the letters for “his friend.”

Carter had Hallmon to read both letters in court, and Hallmon stumbled through the reading with great difficulty.

During redirect, Hallmon told Evans that he loved his mother and it was his mother that made him call the district attorney’s office and tell them what he did.

“I know I’m getting ready to see God,” Hallmon said. “And I want to get my life together. It was Curtis that asked me to lie. He told me he killed those people.”