Curtis Flowers will receive financial compensation from the state of Mississippi

WINONA, Miss. (WCBI) – The man wrongfully accused in the deaths of 4 people in Winona will receive a total of half a million dollars from the state of Mississippi.

Curtis Flowers will receive $50,000 a year for each year he was behind bars.

The Winona man has faced six trials, four resulting in death sentences and more than 2 decades behind bars for the Tardy Furniture Store shootings in 1996.

It happened early one morning. Winona police officers found the bodies of Bertha Tardy, Derrick “Bobo” Stewart, Robert Golden, and Carmen Rigby shot execution-style.

Flowers was charged in all four deaths.  He was convicted four times.  Those convictions were overturned by higher courts.  Two mistrials were declared in the other two trials.

In the summer of 2019, the U-S Supreme Court overturned Flowers’ conviction.  Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch decided not to prosecute Flowers again.  Fitch dropped the charges against Flowers in September of 2020.

According to state law, the state of Mississippi is required to pay compensation to people who are wrongfully convicted or imprisoned.

Circuit Court Judge George Mitchell submitted the judgment on Tuesday, March 2nd.