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The sun wasn’t up yet, but neighbors couldn’t advice acquainted the Volkswagen Beetle with amethyst after-effects that pulled in advanced of a abode on Bergen Lane in Farmers Branch.
Two men got out and went central the home.
Later that morning, William Black found his wife, Elizabeth “Betty” Black, and their Doberman, Santana, attempt to death.
The abode had been ransacked. Someone had been attractive for — but hadn't begin — $39,000 in banknote hidden inside, biologic money the brace had been captivation on to while their son was in prison.
Days afterwards the murder, the next-door acquaintance who had gotten the best attending at the two men asked Farmers Branch badge to anesthetize her. She basic to relax so she could call one of the men she had glimpsed through the blinds that morning.
That neighbor’s affidavit — and in-court identification of one of the men — helped captive Charles Don Flores of basic annihilation and sentence him to death.
Charles Don Flores
(Dallas County Jail )
Nearly 20 years later, addition man, who accepted the murder, walks free. Flores, 47, charcoal on afterlife row, and the affidavit that helped put him there is in question.
An advocate for Flores says his conviction was based on "junk science" because the neighbor, Jill Barganier, had been hypnotized.
The Texas Cloister of Criminal Appeals blocked Flores' beheading aftermost year to acquiesce the balloon cloister to actuate whether avant-garde science negates Barganier's affidavit and whether Flores would accept been bedevilled afterwards her identification.
"Take her out of the blueprint and there wouldn't accept been a conviction," aegis advocate Gretchen Sween arguable during an appellate audition aftermost week.
The audition affiliated this anniversary afore State District Judge Hector Garza and will resume in December back both abandon present closing arguments. Affidavit from the audition will be beatific to the Cloister of Criminal Appeals, forth with the judge's recommendation.
At the affection of the address is how Barganier came to analyze Flores in cloister afterwards actuality clumsy to aces him out of two photo lineups. Did the analgesic amplitude her?
Neighbors, including Barganier, told badge in the canicule afterwards the killing that they had apparent two white men with affiliated beard and average builds get out of the VW bug.
"No one was talking about a fat Hispanic male," Sween said.
Charles Don Flores in a mugshot acclimated in a photo calendar apparent to beholder Jill Barganier
(Courtesy photo)
Flores is Hispanic and had abbreviate beard at the time.
But Dallas County prosecutors argue that Flores would've been bedevilled afterwards Barganier's testimony.
"Barganier's in-court identification was far from the alone affirmation abutting him to the crime," Assistant District Advocate Rebecca Ott wrote in the state's acknowledgment to the appeal.
Other assemblage said they had apparent Flores with Richard Lynn Childs, the man who confessed, in the hours afore the murder.
Childs pleaded accusable in 2000 to a bargain annihilation charge. He accustomed a 35-year book and was appear on acquittal in April 2016, two months afore Flores was set to be executed.
When the appellate cloister backward Flores' beheading aftermost year, Justice David Newell wrote that Flores had been "sentenced to afterlife in allotment aloft hypnotically-enhanced beholder testimony."
On the day Black was killed, Jan. 29, 1998, Barganier peered through her miniblinds about 6:45 a.m. afterwards audition the Beetle cull into the driveway of the Blacks' home.
She saw two men get out of the car and noticed that the disciplinarian was captivation a beer bottle. She shrugged it off and affiliated her morning routine.
After acquirements afterwards that her acquaintance had been dead abutting door, she contacted police. She declared the disciplinarian to a account artisan and best Childs out of a photo lineup.
Richard Lynn Childs was arrested for Betty Black's annihilation in 1998.
(Courtesy photo)
But she wasn't assured anecdotic the passenger. She saw a photo in a calendar that could accept been him, but she wasn't sure. She remembered his beard actuality best than the images of short-haired men.
"Doing the aboriginal blended was terrible. It was actual stressful," Barganier recalled in cloister aftermost week. "I was a nervous, afraid wreck."
Which is why she asked to be beguiled afore she declared the commuter to the account artist.
A Farmers Branch badge administrator — who had never performed analgesic and never did afresh — counted bottomward and told Barganier to brainstorm she was walking into a cine theater. The contest of that aboriginal morning would be arena on the screen.
After the hypnosis, Barganier was apparent addition photo calendar but didn't point out Flores or anyone else.
But back she saw Flores in a attorneys added than a year later, she was assured he was the additional man she had apparent the morning her acquaintance was killed.
"When I saw him in person, there wasn't any doubt," she said.
Charles Don Flores' mugshot bears little affinity to a account based on an eyewitness's description accustomed anon afterwards the murder.
An able testified during the appeals audition that Barganier may accept accustomed Flores because she had apparent him before: Board had apparent her his account alert in lineups.
Flores' mugshot was additionally apparent in the bi-weekly and on TV newscasts, admitting Barganier said she didn't see the media advantage of the killing.
"People who accomplish inaccurate identifications, they accept they're accurate," said Margaret Bull Kovera, a assistant at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice who studies anamnesis and beholder testimony. "They accept they're speaking the truth. They're not lying."
But Kovera questioned the authority of Barganier's identification of Flores, adage the attestant had seen the two men at atomic 30 account afore aurora in dim light. And Barganier had paid abutting absorption to an unimportant detail, the beer bottle, instead of the men's faces, Kovera said.
A circuitous web of relationships led badge to Flores. He didn't apperceive Betty Black, but he had acclimated meth with Childs in the hours afore she was killed. Childs was dating Jackie Roberts. She's the ex-wife of Gary Black, the victim's son.
William and Betty Black gave their above daughter-in-law $500 a ages to abutment their son's two accouchement while he was bound up on a biologic charge. Roberts knew the brace had money hidden in the house, and she gave Childs admonition there.
She testified that Flores believed he had been shortchanged in a biologic accord the night afore Betty Black was dead and had accepted repayment.
But who absolutely attempt the 64-year-old grandmother was in question. Childs was accepted to backpack a gun in his waistband and was arrested with a box of cartridges that were the aforementioned ability as the bullets from the abomination scene. No concrete affirmation affiliated Flores to the murder.
Flores was approved beneath the "law of parties," which agency that alike if he wasn't the shooter, he was amiss because he was present back Betty Black was killed.
When a acquaintance asked about the agitation Flores was in afterwards the murder, Flores responded, "I alone attempt the dog," cloister annal show.
But Flores claims that his accompany and ancestors were pressured by badge to about-face on him. He says he never said that and is innocent.
His aegis aggregation has argued that his confidence reflects ancestral bent in Dallas County prosecutions, because a Hispanic man was bedevilled to afterlife while the white man believed to be the ballista was accustomed a 35-year sentence.
Richard Lynn Childs was appear from bastille on acquittal in 2016.
(Texas Department of Criminal Justice )
But Flores' behavior afterwards the killing was suspicious, and prosecutors argued that his attempts to abscond showed he was guilty.
Flores torched the consciousness-expanding acrylic job off Childs' VW Beetle afore beat the country. He was arrested three months afterwards afterwards a badge chase. And he had to abrasion a amaze belt during his balloon because he had attacked a bouncer while aggravating to escape Dallas County bastille custody.
Last year Flores told the online account armpit Splinter Account that he ran because he was scared.
"You run back you apperceive they can accord you a activity sentence. You additionally run if you apperceive you're the alone Mexican in a accumulation of whites," he said. "I ran because I knew what was activity to happen."
Ultimately, Barganier is the alone beholder to put Flores at the arena of the crime, and the balloon was the aboriginal time she articular him.
Her description of the morning's contest had afflicted slightly. During the trial, she declared "locking eyes" with Flores back he got out of the Volkswagen.
Before hypnosis, she had not said she had fabricated eye acquaintance with the commuter in the car.
"I'm not absolute bright if that's my imagination," Barganier testified about that affirmation during the appeals hearing.
During the analgesic session, the administrator told Barganier that she would be able to "recall added of these contest as time goes on."
An able on analgesic said board pressured Barganier to analyze the commuter back they beguiled her.
But Barganier said she hadn't acquainted pressured to analyze anyone during hypnosis. She said she artlessly basic to relax afore attractive at addition photo lineup.
"I couldn't alike attending at any added pictures afterwards shaking," she said.
Steven Jay Lynn, a assistant of attitude who studies hypnosis, testified at the appeals audition that Barganier shouldn't accept been beguiled by a badge administrator who formed the abomination scene.
"If she basic relaxation, the aftermost abode she should go is the Badge Department," Lynn said.
