Curtis Flowers, 50, was also awarded $500,000 by the state of Mississippi for the wrongfully conviction, USA Today reported.
Curtis Flowers's story is a remarkable one. The Mississippi man, having been wrongfully incarcerated for 23 years and spent half his life on death row, is now living life to its fullest since his 2019 release, according to a report.
In a few weeks, Flowers, 50, will be getting married to his fiancée, who began a correspondence with him while he was in prison. The announcement was made on the Instagram account of American Public radio’s “In the Dark," the popular true-crime podcast that helped bring national attention to Flowers' case.
Followers of his case were overjoyed at the news.
"This is so great!" one commenter wrote.
"So happy for Curtis!!" wrote another.
The state of Mississippi announced last week that they will pay Flowers $500,000 after he spent nearly 23 years in prison for crime he didn't commit. The award is the maximum allowed under Mississippi law, USA Today reported.
Flowers, who is Black, was convicted in the shooting deaths of four people in 1996 at Tardy Furniture Store in Winona. He maintained his innocence for more than two decades. His case went through six trials for the same crime, the most in modern U.S. history, The Mississippi Clarion-Ledger reported.
In September 2020, Flower’s life changed when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the final conviction and prosecutors had dropped all charges, Inside Edition Digital reported.
Montgomery County Circuit Judge Joseph Loper said Flowers would not be tried a seventh time after the state attorney general’s office said they no longer had any credible witnesses connecting him to four 1996 murders in a furniture store, according to Inside Edition Digital.
Flowers rejoiced when he finally became a free man in December 2019.
“Today I am finally free from the injustice that left me locked in a box for nearly 23 years,” Flowers said in a statement, previously reported by USA Today. “I’ve been asked if I ever thought this day would come. I have been blessed with a family that never gave up on me and with them by my side, I knew it would.”
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