Charles Flores has been in death penalty for 26 years after being convicted of the 1998 murder of Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Black in Texas.
However, he has always maintained his innocence and his case is one of the strangest in recent history.
Why? Because his conviction rested heavily on the testimony of Black’s neighbor, Jill Barganier, whose account changed after she underwent forensic hypnosis.
Now, having exhausted all his appeals, Flores has one last chance for freedom: a petition to the Supreme Court.
NBC News recently sat down with Flores for his first nationally televised interview, where he claimed no part in the murder.
Speaking to reporter Dan Slepian, Flores said: “I’m preparing myself. I had nothing to do with Ms. Black’s murder.’
So what happened?
In January 1998, William Black returned home to find his property burglarized and his wife, Betty, shot to death.
It was later discovered that the blacks had hidden the drug money for their son, who was incarcerated at the time.
After the shooting, a handful of neighbors told police they saw two men get out of a distinctively printed Volkswagen Beetle and enter Black’s home.
A day later, Black’s next-door neighbor identified a man named Richard Childs as the driver. The children later confessed to the murder and pleaded guilty to 35 years in prison. After serving 17 years, Childs was released on parole in 2016.
Five days after Childs was arrested, neighbor Barganier was taken to the police station to create a composite sketch of the passenger. While she identified Childs as the driver, she did not identify Flores, who appeared in two lineups.
Barganier was then hypnotized by a police officer. During the hearing, Barganier said the passenger was a white male with long hair and a medium build. That didn’t fit the description of Flores, who was described as “Hispanic, short, stocky, with shaved hair.”
Before the hypnosis ended, the officer told her that she ‘would be able to remember more of the events as time went on’.
However, it was later reported by Houston Public media that all rules were not followed during the recording of the hearing, stating that a Texas law was violated. When the hypnosis technique was allowed, the state did not allow the officers involved in the case to be part of a hypnosis session.
Then, 13 months later, Bargainer did a 360 during Flores’ trial, identifying her as the passenger in the Beetle and telling the court she was ‘100% sure.’
This bombshell comment immediately convicted Flores, even though no physical or DNA evidence linked him to the murder.
Additionally, while Flores did not pull the trigger, he still received the death penalty under Texas law for being an accomplice, and he was sentenced under the parties’ law.
That’s despite the fact that he has an alibi — Flores claims he was having breakfast with his wife at the time of the murder — and it didn’t match the accomplice’s description.
NBC reported that the car used in the killing was hidden behind Flores’ home. Two days later he set fire to it and fled to Mexico.
When he returned, he led police on a chase and crashed his car, taking him to hospital where he again tried to escape.
When Slepian asked why he had run if he was innocent, he said: ‘I’m here to tell you that you also run when you’re afraid.
“I had this thought: ‘They’re going to kill me, they’re going to kill me.’ And you know what? I was right. Where am I?’, while he was waiting to die.
Flores came within five days of execution in 2016, but was granted a stay after he presented evidence from psychology professor Steven Lynn, whose research linked the hypnosis method used to the creation of false memories.
An investigation in 2020 by dallas The Morning News found that investigative hypnosis had been used in at least 1,700 cases in Texas since the 1980s, resulting in prison sentences and even death sentences.
After experts raised concerns, the method was banned from criminal proceedings as the process was deemed unreliable. However, it was not applied retroactively and Flores’ conviction stood.
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