21 June 2010 :

A Montgomery County jury unanimously sentenced Curtis Giovanni Flowers to death. Flowers, 40, black, was convicted  of capital murder in the deaths of four people during a shooting spree on July 16, 1996. The victims were the owner and three employees of the store from which Flowers had been fired: Bertha Tardy, 59; Derrick Stewart, 16, Carmen Rigby, 45; and Robert Golden, 42. The Mississippi Supreme Court overturned three earlier convictions and death penalty sentences — twice because prosecutors referred to all four murders when Flowers was only being tried for one of them and once for racial bias in jury selection. The previous two mistrials, which were held in 2007 and 2008 in Winona, ended with racially split juries unable to reach a unanimous verdict. Three of the four victims are white. (see also June 29, 2006).