Episode 6: Charlie Flores vs. Charles Don Flores
The two halves of Charles Flores’ life so far have been drastically different
Howdy, Unforgotten listeners!
We’ve made it to the finale of Riding Shotgun, and this one is a little different from the rest of the season.
Listen to Episode 6: Charlie Flores vs. Charles Don Flores wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.
Instead of focusing on the case, this episode is about who Charles Flores is today — nearly three decades after he was sentenced to death. Michelle spent months talking to his friends, and what they describe is not who you might expect.
His friends call him jolly and kind and talk about his smile and his laugh. He’s in more than one book club. He’s a Dallas Cowboys superfan. He helped his cousin through a divorce. He listens to his friends’ problems and talks them through their hard times, even from the isolation of death row.
The episode ends with a list of questions that still don’t have answers. It’s a good place to sit with everything you’ve heard this season.
We also want to take a moment to brag on Michelle. She just co-won the Edwin “Bud” Shrake Award for Best Short Nonfiction at the Texas Institute of Letters for her piece “You Don’t Have to Kill Us. You Don’t Have to Throw Us Away” in the Texas Observer. We’re so proud of her and grateful that she brought this story to The Unforgotten.
If you haven’t come across the Texas Observer before, it’s a nonprofit news outlet that’s been covering Texas since 1954. Their founding mission is to “serve no group or party but hew hard to the truth.” We couldn’t have asked for a better partner for this season.
We’re already moving into Season 6, and we think you’re going to want to hear this one. It covers perhaps the most infamous unsolved murder case in the Dallas area, maybe even in Texas: the murder of Missy Bevers. More soon! — Aislyn