Houston Chronicle (Opinion): I interviewed the inmate in the ‘hypnotized witness’ case. There’s still time to stop his execution.
Regan Bowlby
I interviewed the inmate in the ‘hypnotized witness’ case. There’s still time to stop his execution.
Pablo Torre, March 25, 2026
The first time I heard the voice of Charles Flores, he was explaining the strategy for his fantasy football draft from a cell on Texas’ death row.
My sports podcast, “Pablo Torre Finds Out,” had stumbled onto a strange fact: A surprising number of inmates awaiting execution use their last words on Earth to shout out their favorite team. We wanted to understand why. And Charles — a lifelong Cowboys fan who has now spent nearly three decades on death row — agreed to help us find out.
But what began as an episode about diehard fandom became something I did not expect: a window into a case that continues to haunt me months later.
In 1999, Charles Don Flores was convicted of the murder of Betty Black. There had been a botched robbery — no physical evidence, however, linked him to the crime or the crime scene.
After Flores’ conviction, Flores’ co-defendant, Richard Childs, pleaded guilty to shooting Black. In 2016, after serving less than half his sentence, he was released on parole. A free man.
Charles, on the other hand, has been spending 23 hours a day in solitary confinement at the supermax Polunsky Unit in Livingston. And when I visited him there in January, I finally understood the absurdity of the evidence that put him on death row in the first place.
The conviction of Charles Flores, it turns out, hinged primarily on the testimony of an eyewitness named Jill Barganier. But this was not just any testimony.
Before Barganier identified Charles, she was hypnotized by police officers.
You can watch Barganier’s “forensic hypnosis” session yourself, over on YouTube. It is as disturbingly cinematic as it sounds. Barganier had initially — and repeatedly — described two male suspects: both white, both with long hair. But later, after police hypnosis, she identified Charles, a large Hispanic man with short, shaved hair.
More than two decades later, the practice of forensic hypnosis would be exposed as unreliable and manipulative. In 2023, Texas even passed a law that bars hypnosis-induced testimony from being used in court. The practice is now regarded, at long last, as junk science.
You can imagine how thrilled Charles and his attorneys were when that law passed.
But then they read the cruel fine print: The ban does not apply retroactively. Meaning that the man who helped inspire the law cannot benefit from it.
No, I’m not a lawyer, legislator or activist. I’m a sports journalist. But I know something about fair play. Nothing about this feels even vaguely fair.
Charles has already exhausted all available appeals in the Texas court system. His attorneys filed a final petition to the U.S. Supreme Court in February. If that’s denied, the state could set an execution date.
Dallas County’s district attorney, John Creuzot, is in his final months in office. Creuzot has the authority to review death-row cases. In fact, his office recently held a press conference to acknowledge the likely innocence of Tommy Lee Walker, a man executed nearly 70 years ago.
In the case of Charles Flores, there’s still precious time to get it right. And yet, Creuzot has repeatedly refused to review Charles’ case and is opposing Charles’ appeal to the Supreme Court.
“I just want a fair review,” Charles told me, back in January. “I just want a fair shot.”
For what it’s worth, my podcast has helped circulate a petition urging Texas authorities to review Charles’ case. At last check, more than 12,000 people signed in support.
And if you’re wondering: Yes, Charles Flores still has faith in the Dallas Cowboys. Despite it all, despite losing Micah Parsons, despite another miserable season, he still believes in their future.
I hope he’s around to see it.
Pablo Torre hosts "Pablo Torre Finds Out," part of the New York Times / The Athletic network, named one of Time’s 100 Best Podcasts of All Time. The show has focused three episodes on Charles Don Flores’ case and life on death row, the first of which — “Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row” — was nominated for a Peabody Award in 2024.