The Polunsky Unit, where Charles Don Flores has been held on death row, in solitary confinement since 1999.
The conviction of Charles Don Flores resulted from the January 29, 1998 murder of Elizabeth "Betty" Black, a 64-year-old woman, in Farmers Branch, Texas. Flores was never accused of shooting Black, did not match the description of the accomplice, had an alibi, and someone else confessed to the murder.
Flores' conviction relied on testimony from Black's neighbor, Jill Barganier, when she changed her account during the trial after undergoing forensic hypnosis. Testimony that is the result of, or given after forensic hypnosis is used, was banned in the state of Texas in 2023, however the law did not apply retroactively. Barganier had been unable to identify Flores in a photo lineup before her hypnosis.[1]
In 2000, Richard Lynn Childs confessed to murdering Black and was sentenced to 35 years in prison; he was released on parole in 2016. Flores was never accused of pulling the trigger, but was convicted under the law of parties.
No physical or DNA evidence has tied Flores to the murder, and he has maintained his innocence since his arrest. He currently awaits execution at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas. Flores maintains his innocence; numerous experts and advocacy groups agree with him and are — as of February 2026 — still advocating for a new trial for him.
Murder
On January 29, 1998, William Black returned home to find his home torn apart and his wife, Elizabeth "Betty" Black, murdered.[2] It would later be revealed that Black had been killed in a robbery gone wrong, as the Blacks had been hiding drug money for their son while he was in prison.[3]
Investigation
Soon after the murder, multiple neighbors stated to police that they saw two men get out of a Volkswagen Beetle with a psychedelic paint scheme and go into the Black's home.[4][2] Within a day, the Blacks' next-door neighbor easily identified Richard Childs as the car's driver.[3][5][6]
At first, none of the witnesses were able to identify the passenger who went into Black's home along with Childs. Five days after the murder, one of the witnesses — Jill Barganier — was brought to the police station in hopes of creating a composite sketch of the passenger. Barganier positively identified Childs as the driver, but was unable to identify the passenger from two photo lineups she was shown, both of which included Flores.[7][8][2]
She was hypnotized by a police officer who was trained in forensic hypnosis, but had never performed hypnosis before, in hopes of helping her make an identification. Under hypnosis, she stated that the passenger was a white male, medium build, with "very long" hair.[3] Before the end of the hypnosis session, the officer told her that she would “be able to recall more of the events as time goes on”.[4] The recording of the hypnosis session revealed that not all rules were followed; for example, when the technique was still allowed, Texas law did not allow any officer involved in the investigation to be part of the hypnosis session.[9][10]
Flores maintains that he was making breakfast with his wife in Irving, Texas, at the time of the murder.[11]
Trial
Barganier only identified Flores as the passenger of the VW Beetle over a year later in the courtroom during Flores's trial.[12][13] Flores' counsel has pointed out that his mug shot was shown frequently on television and in the newspaper, and Barganier acknowledged seeing his photograph before identifying Flores in the courtroom.[7][14][15]
Barganier's identification of Flores in court also did not match her original description of the passenger as a tall white man with long hair; Flores is "Hispanic, shot, stocky with then shaved hair."[16][17] Flores' defense team requested a Zani hearing — a judicial review of the hypnosis session to ensure it followed 10 state guidelines — and while the judge found more than three of ten guidelines had not been followed, the judge nonetheless allowed Barganier to testify trial.[4]
Flores was never accused of murdering Black, only of being a party to the crime. No fingerprints, DNA, or other physical evidence were presented at trial that tied Flores to the crime or to the scene of the crime.[4][15]
Flores' defense team called only one witness during his trial, "a gun expert who testified that a gun belonging to Flores that the police found was not the murder weapon." He was found guilty on March 30, 1999; during his sentencing, his parents were prevented from testifying.[14]
Richard Childs
After confessing to her murder, Richard Childs — whose father was a police officer — signed a guilty plea for the murder of Elizabeth Black on April 5, 2000.[14] When he was arrested, Childs had "a box of cartridges that were the same caliber as the bullets from the crime scene."[2] Childs was also known to own a Volkswagen Beetle with a psychedelic paint scheme that matched witness accounts from the morning of Black's murder.[15]
Childs was sentenced to 35 years in prison; he was released on parole in 2016 after serving 17 years of his sentence.[2]
Reactions
Supporters of Flores have long been calling his conviction and incarceration an injustice for a litany of reasons, including the use of forensic hypnosis, which the Texas Rangers stopped using voluntarily in 2021 and was outlawed in the state in 2023.[7] His supporters further point out what they call another injustice: that his case is what sparked legislative reform that eventually led to the 2023 banning of the practice of forensic hypnosis in Texas, but that the law is not retroactive so it did not apply to his case.[18]
As of February 2026, numerous organizations and experts continue to work on Flores's behalf to overturn his conviction and death sentence. Additionally, The Innocence Project has long sounded an alarm about forensic hypnosis, calling it "deeply unreliable."[4]
Experts point to research demonstrating that "hypnotized subjects remembered less than those who were not hypnotized and omitted more details", and that "hypnosis increases subjects' confidence in their memories, regardless of whether those memories are accurate or not."[4]
One expert on forensic hypnosis, Dr. Steven Lynn — who had, early in his career, been a "true believer" in the use of forensic hypnosis — "testified that the hypnosis in the Flores case had relied on this faulty concept of memory", and described Bargainer's identification of Flores as "astounding" 13 months after the crime.[4]
In a February 2026 episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out, Innocence Project board member and record executive Jason Flom stated about the use of the law of parties in Flores' case "It's shocking to a lot of people and it should be shocking to everyone: the idea that the state can say 'we know you didn't kill anybody, but we're going to execute you anyway.'" [21]
Appeals
Flores has appealed his conviction and sentence at least four times. One appeal, which was filed in 2016, was denied in 2020 without weighing the merits of forensic hypnosis.[22][23]
In 2021, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear Flores' case. The Innocence Project, in an amicus curiae brief, pointed to another flaw in Barganier's identification of Flores; at the time the two suspects got out of the car, "the sun had not risen, and there were no street lights on her block."[24]
In 2025, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) denied Flores' fourth appeal without explanation.[25] Flores' attorney stated, however, that as of October 2025, the CCA is "still considering her suggestion that the court reconsider the claim challenging the use of investigative hypnosis to convict Flores."[25]
Flores' case was featured in three episodes of Pablo Torre Finds Out, two of which featured interviews with Flores from death row; one of the episodes was nominated for a Peabody Award.[27][28][21]
Flores's case was also featured in a TEDx TalkThe new science of eyewitness memory, given by psychologist and memory researcher John Wixted.[29]
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