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Post by Chris2 on Jan 9, 2005 3:09:24 GMT -6
Getting it wrong in Texas 'It was just a fire."
That's what a renowned arson investigator said of a 1991 fire that claimed the lives of three little girls. He said it may well have been an accident.
Unfortunately, Texas' justice system was too blind to consider that investigator's analysis as it condemned Cameron Todd Willingham to death for setting the fire that killed his 3 children. The result: Texas last year may well have executed an innocent man.
As Tribune reporters Steve Mills and Maurice Possley detailed in an astonishing report last month, the case against Willingham was built atop one hollow brick after another. Many of the claims made at trial by fire investigators were based on theories that since have been repudiated by scientific advances.
Four fire experts who reviewed the case at the request of the Tribune found the investigation to be seriously flawed. They said it was possible the fire was merely an accident.
The Texas deputy state fire marshal who investigated the case testified at Willingham's trial that the melted aluminum threshold was evidence that an accelerant had been used to set the fire.
He was wrong. A fire that started without accelerant, new research shows, could have burned hot enough to melt the threshold.
The fact that traces of charcoal lighter fluid were found under the front threshold, the fire marshal testified, also provided evidence accelerant was used to light the fire.
Wrong again. Firefighters' hoses may well have propelled the plastic container of lighter fluid that had been on the porch under the threshold.
He claimed that "brown rings" found on the concrete front porch also pointed to use of an accelerant.
Wrong. Such rings can be left when puddles of fire-hose water evaporate.
Burn marks found under carpet tiles and the crackly "crazed" glass also provided proof that an accelerant was used, according to the fire marshal's testimony.
Wrong.
In fact, this fire marshal apparently had never met a fire he didn't think was arson. At least that's what he said during Willingham's trial. He stated that during his career, nearly every fire he ever investigated was arson--a statement fire experts who reviewed this case for the Tribune found astonishing and incredulous.
Prosecutors offered up an unreliable jailhouse snitch on psychiatric medication who claimed Willingham confessed to him. They also based their case on the suggestion that Willingham didn't appear to be aggressive enough about getting his children out of the 1991 fire and that he didn't appear as grief-stricken afterward as he should have been. They offered a questionable motive: He wanted more time for drinking beer and throwing darts.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Texas judges had access to the report by the prominent scientist, Gerald Hurst, that sharply questioned whether this fire was set by an arsonist.
They set the report aside. Willingham was executed last February.
That's what passes for justice in Texas. The Willingham case undermines the notion that we execute only those we know to be guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt." It should send a shiver across the nation.
(source: Editorial, Chicago Tribune)
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Post by Chris2 on Jan 9, 2005 3:21:46 GMT -6
Willingham's last words: «The only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent man - convicted of a crime I did not commit. I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do. From God's dust I came and to dust I will return - so the earth shall become my throne. I gotta go, road dog. I love you Gabby.»
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Post by Chris2 on Jan 9, 2005 3:28:03 GMT -6
Fire that killed his 3 children could have been accidental By Steve Mills and Maurice Possley; Chicago Tribune December 9, 2004
CORSICANA, Texas -- Strapped to a gurney in Texas' death chamber earlier this year, just moments from his execution for setting a fire that killed his three daughters, Cameron Todd Willingham declared his innocence one last time.
"I am an innocent man, convicted of a crime I did not commit," Willingham said angrily. "I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do."
While Texas authorities dismissed his protests, a Tribune investigation of his case shows that Willingham was prosecuted and convicted based primarily on arson theories that have since been repudiated by scientific advances. According to four fire experts consulted by the Tribune, the original investigation was flawed and it is even possible the fire was accidental.
Before Willingham died by lethal injection on Feb. 17, Texas judges and Gov. Rick Perry turned aside a report from a prominent fire scientist questioning the conviction.
The author of the report, Gerald Hurst, reviewed additional documents, trial testimony and an hourlong videotape of the aftermath of the fire scene at the Tribune's request last month. Three other fire investigators--private consultants John Lentini and John DeHaan and Louisiana fire chief Kendall Ryland--also examined the materials for the newspaper.
"There's nothing to suggest to any reasonable arson investigator that this was an arson fire," said Hurst, a Cambridge University-educated chemist who has investigated scores of fires in his career. "It was just a fire."
Ryland, chief of the Effie Fire Department and a former fire instructor at Louisiana State University, said that, in his workshop, he tried to re-create the conditions the original fire investigators described.
When he could not, he said, it "made me sick to think this guy was executed based on this investigation. ... They executed this guy and they've just got no idea--at least not scientifically--if he set the fire, or if the fire was even intentionally set."
Even Edward Cheever, one of the state deputy fire marshals who had assisted in the original investigation of the 1991 fire, acknowledged that Hurst's criticism was valid.
"At the time of the Corsicana fire, we were still testifying to things that aren't accurate today," he said. "They were true then, but they aren't now.
"Hurst," he added, "was pretty much right on. ... We know now not to make those same assumptions."
A Tribune investigation of forensic science this year found that many of the pillars of arson investigation that were commonly believed for many years have been disproved by rigorous scientific scrutiny.
Willingham was charged after fire investigators concluded an accelerant had been used to set three separate fires inside the wood-frame, one-story home. Their findings were based on what they described as more than 20 indicators of arson.
Among them: "crazed glass," the intricate, weblike cracks through glass. For years arson investigators believed it was a clear indication that an accelerant had been used to fuel a fire that became exceedingly hot. Now, analysts have established that it is created when hot glass is sprayed with water, as when the fire is put out. It was just such evidence that helped convict Willingham.
Just as Hurst and other consultants dismissed the "crazed glass," they also said other so-called indicators--floor burn patterns and the charring of wood under the aluminum threshold--were just as unreliable.
The experts said evidence indicated the fire had advanced to flashover, a phenomenon that occurs when a fire gets so hot that gas builds up and causes an explosion. After flashover, "it becomes impossible to visually identify accelerant patterns," Hurst reported.
He also said the original finding that charring of wood was due to an accelerant under the threshold "is clearly impossible. Liquid accelerants can no more burn under an aluminum threshold than grease can burn in a skillet, even with a loose-fitting lid."
Prosecutors, though, point to other evidence against Willingham presented at his trial: a jailhouse informant who claimed Willingham confessed to him and stands by his testimony, and witnesses who said Willingham did not try hard enough to save his children.
Kathy Walt, a spokeswoman for the Texas governor, said Perry carefully considered "all of the factors" in Willingham's case before deciding against a stay.
Navarro County Judge John Jackson, who as the first assistant district attorney prosecuted Willingham, said that while the experts' review raises some "issues," he has no doubt that Willingham was guilty.
"Does it give me pause? No it does not. I have no reservations."
But some of the jurors who convicted Willingham and sentenced him to death were troubled when shown or told of the new case review.
"Did anybody know about this prior to his execution?" Dorinda Brokofsky asked. "Now I will have to live with this for the rest of my life. Maybe this man was innocent."
A groundbreaking document in fire investigation, the National Fire Protection Association's NFPA 921, was published on Feb. 10, 1992, less than two months after the fatal fire at the Willingham house.
Filled with the new revelations about fire science, NFPA 921 was developed by 30 fire experts, including Lentini and DeHaan, and was written as a guideline for fire investigators. It is considered the standard on fire investigation and is a key reference text for the Texas fire marshal's office. Some investigators, however, have refused to acknowledge it, preferring to stick to the old ways.
The scientific advances played a role in the exoneration of another Texas Death Row inmate, Ernest Willis, earlier this year.
In Pecos County, in West Texas, District Atty. Ori White had to decide whether to retry Willis, who had been convicted of setting a fire that killed two women and had spent 17 years on Death Row. Willis had gotten a new trial on unrelated legal issues in the case.
Before making his decision, White asked Hurst to review the fire evidence. The prosecutor also asked Ryland to conduct an independent review.
Hurst concluded there was no evidence of arson, that the fire most likely was accidental. Ryland concurred. White then dropped the case against Willis and Willis walked free. It was the 12th time Hurst's work had led to dismissal of charges or an acquittal.
Said White: "I don't turn killers loose. If Willis was guilty, I'd be retrying him right now. And I'd use Hurst as my witness. He's a brilliant scientist. If he says it was an arson fire, then it was. If he says it wasn't, then it wasn't."
Hurst and Ryland said the two fires--the one that sent Willis to Death Row and the one that sent Willingham to his execution--were nearly identical.
Of the 944 men and women executed since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in the mid-1970s, only one--Willingham--has been put to death for a crime in which fire was the murder weapon.
The deadly fire In 1991, two days before Christmas, Willingham's wife left the house in the morning to pay the water and electric bills. Stacy Willingham then went to a Salvation Army store to shop for Christmas gifts.
Cameron Todd Willingham, 23 at the time, told fire investigators he woke up as his wife was leaving shortly after 9 a.m., and heard their 1-year-old twins, Karmon and Kameron, crying. He gave them bottles, laid them on the floor, and put up a childproof gate at the door to their bedroom.
Two-year-old Amber was still asleep in the same room. Willingham said that he went back to his bedroom across the hall and fell back to sleep.
According to police reports and interviews with family members, the couple struggled. Stacy worked at a bar called Some Other Place, in nearby Mustang, while Todd, as everybody called him, was staying home with the girls after being laid off weeks earlier.
They lived on the south side of Corsicana, a town of some 24,000 people an hour south of Dallas. The Willingham family was two months behind on the rent and in arrears on their other bills, some of which they had stopped paying to save money for Christmas.
They didn't have a stove; they had managed with a two-burner hot plate, a microwave that, Willingham said, frequently "popped" while in use, and a countertop deep-fat fryer.
Todd and Stacy fought often, and he sometimes left home. He enjoyed drinking beer and throwing darts; in fact, those hobbies would be singled out as his motive for the crime.
Willingham also had been in trouble with the law. A 10th-grade dropout from Ardmore, Okla., he had sniffed glue and paint, and he had committed a string of crimes, including burglary, grand larceny and car theft.
Willingham told investigators that he was awakened about an hour after his wife left by Amber's cries of "Daddy, Daddy."
The house, he said, was so full of smoke that he could not see the doorway leading out of the bedroom. Crouching low, he went into the hall. He said he saw that there was not much smoke in the kitchen but "couldn't see anything but black" toward the front of the house.
With the electrical circuits popping, Willingham said he made his way to the girls' bedroom. He saw an orange glow on the ceiling, but little else because the smoke was so heavy. He said he stood up to step over the childproof gate, and his hair caught fire.
He crouched back down, he told investigators, and felt along the floor for the twins but could not find them. He said he called out for Amber and felt on top of her bed, but she was not there.
When debris began to fall from the ceiling, burning his shoulder, he said he fled through the hall and out the front door.
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Post by Chris2 on Jan 9, 2005 3:30:11 GMT -6
He tried to go back into the house, he said, but it was too hot. He saw neighbors and told them to call the Fire Department, screaming, "My babies is in there and I can't get them out."
Neighbor Mary Barbee told police she saw Willingham in the front yard and she ran to ask a neighbor to call for help because her telephone was disconnected.
Meanwhile, Willingham told investigators, he took a pool cue and knocked out two windows overlooking the front porch to try to get into the bedroom.
Barbee said that when she returned, Willingham was standing by a chain-link fence as heavy smoke billowed from the house. Just as she neared his yard, "large fire suddenly bellowed out from around the front of the house," she told investigators, then the windows blew out.
She said that was when Willingham rushed to his garage and pushed his car away from the fire scene.
At that moment, Burvin Smith arrived after hearing the fire call over a radio scanner. Smith told police that Willingham was yelling that his "babies were in the house" and "acting real hysterical."
He said he restrained Willingham from going onto the porch.
Willingham became a suspect almost immediately, when neighbors such as Barbee told investigators they didn't believe he tried hard enough to rescue his children.
Firefighters thought Willingham's burns would have been worse if he had searched for the girls as he said he did. Though he had been burned on his shoulder and back and his hair had been singed, they noted that his feet, which had been bare, were not burned on the bottom.
The day after the fire, police said, Willingham complained that he could not find a dartboard as he walked through the wreckage. Neighbors said they heard loud music coming from the truck of a friend who came to help salvage belongings.
Eleven days after the fire, a police chaplain who had responded to the blaze said he had grown suspicious that Willingham's emotions were not genuine.
"It seemed to me that Cameron was too distraught," said the chaplain, George Monaghan.
Fire investigators, meanwhile, were concluding that the fire had been purposely set.
On Jan. 8, 1992, two weeks after the fire, Willingham was charged with murder. Patrick Batchelor, then the district attorney, told reporters Willingham set the fire because he wanted more time for beer-drinking and dart throwing. The children got in the way.
Inmate, experts testify
Willingham went to trial in August 1992, eight months after the fire. Batchelor and first assistant John Jackson offered a deal--a life term in exchange for a guilty plea. But Willingham turned it down, insisting he was innocent.
Prosecutors presented as their first witness jail inmate Johnny E. Webb, a drug addict who said he took psychiatric medication for post-traumatic stress syndrome, the result of being raped behind bars.
Webb testified that Willingham, after repeatedly denying he had caused the fire, confessed to Webb one day as they spoke through a chuckhole in a steel door at the county jail.
Webb said Willingham told him he set the fire to cover up his wife's physical abuse of one of the girls. The girls, however, had no injuries other than those suffered in the fire.
"I don't know if that dude did that crime or not," Webb said in a prison interview. "I know what he told me."
The prosecution's case also relied on the neighbors who said Willingham could have done more to save his family and two fire investigators, assistant Corsicana fire chief Doug Fogg and deputy state fire marshal Manuel Vasquez, who testified that the fire was arson.
The Texas state fire marshal's office declined to comment for this article. Vasquez, who led the fire investigation, died in 1994.
Fogg, in an interview at his home in upstate New York, stood by his investigation.
"Fire talks to you. The structure talks to you," he said. "You call that years of experience. You don't just pick that knowledge up overnight."
He said he first eliminated accidental causes, including electrical malfunctions-- though his report noted possible shorts in two places in the house.
More than a dozen samples of debris from around the house were tested for accelerants, and one sample, at the front door, tested positive for a byproduct of charcoal lighter fluid. Fogg determined the fire was intentionally started near the front door. Vasquez testified that there were three points of origin.
Fogg then called the state fire marshal's office, which helps small departments investigate fires. Vasquez, who was assigned the investigation, concluded that the fire was arson as well.
At trial, both he and Fogg testified to assumptions about fire that no longer hold.
"The fire tells a story," Vasquez testified. "I am just the interpreter. I am looking at the fire, and I am interpreting the fire. That is what I know. That is what I do best. And the fire does not lie. It tells me the truth."
Vasquez testified that of the 1,200 to 1,500 fires he had investigated, nearly all had been arson, and he had never been wrong.
All four consultants said Vasquez made serious errors in his testimony. For example, when he said an accelerant must have been used to set the fire because wood could not burn hot enough to melt an aluminum threshold, he was wrong. It can.
"The fire investigators ruled the fire to be incendiary because it failed to live up to their expectations of what an accidental fire should look like," said Lentini, a former Georgia crime lab analyst who has testified for prosecutors and the defense in arson trials.
"They used rules of thumb that have since been shown to be false. There was no evidence to support a conclusion that the fire was intentionally set. Just an unsupported opinion."
The experts said that finding evidence of the charcoal lighter fluid was not as ominous as Fogg and Vasquez suggested. They noted that the firefighters found melted remains of a plastic container of lighter fluid on the front porch, and that it was possible firefighters' hoses propelled the fluid under the threshold as they extinguished the fire.
And all four experts were incredulous at two statements Vasquez made: that he had never been wrong in his many years of fire investigation, and that nearly every fire he had investigated he had determined was arson.
Figures from the Texas state fire marshal's office suggest that claim was an exaggeration. Since 1990, the percentage of fires declared incendiary has ranged from 41 percent in 1998 to 60 percent in 1991, when the Willingham fire occurred.
The experts who reviewed the case didn't put any stock in the claims that Willingham's behavior was damning. They say experience shows that there is no way to predict how people will react in a fire or to the grief of losing loved ones.
Prosecutors, though, often rely on such circumstantial evidence, especially when children die in a fire and a parent survives. "When you are building a case of arson on the attitude of the survivor, that's when things can go really wrong, particularly if the victims are children," said DeHaan, a consultant based in California who testifies for both prosecutors and defense lawyers.
Willingham did not testify in his defense. His lawyers feared that he would not handle aggressive cross-examination very well and would not present a good image for jurors.
"To me, he was not repentant," said Robert C. Dunn, one of Willingham's trial lawyers. "He had this attitude and air about him that he was wrongfully charged."
The jurors deliberated a little over an hour before finding Willingham guilty. In interviews, they said there was never a question.
Laura Marx said she would have found Willingham guilty even without the arson finding solely because he did not try to save his children.
Jurors deliberated only slightly longer in handing out the death penalty.
David Martin, the other trial attorney for Willingham, believed he was guilty. "That crime scene was so replete with evidence of arson," he said. "There was no other cause for the house catching on fire."
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Post by Chris2 on Jan 9, 2005 3:30:47 GMT -6
A final appeal
By January 2004, Willingham's appellate lawyer had all but given up hope. Willingham was scheduled to be executed on Feb. 17, and Walter Reaves knew that in Texas, stays are rarely granted.
Then Pat Cox, one of Willingham's cousins, called Reaves.
Cox, a retired nurse who lives in Ardmore, Okla., had seen Gerald Hurst on television and thought he could help save Willingham.
Hurst first went to court in 1972 as a prosecution witness in an Oklahoma bombing case. For the next 20 years, his work was primarily in civil lawsuits.
Ten years ago, a Texas lawyer asked for his advice on an arson case, and Hurst said he saw that "the level of expertise in criminal cases was far below what I was used to seeing in civil cases."
Cox appealed to Hurst and he reviewed Vasquez's report at no cost. He concluded it was riddled with "critical errors in interpreting the evidence." But, he added, the mistakes were not malicious; they simply reflected the state of fire science at the time.
He went on in the report to systematically dismiss all the indicators Fogg and Vasquez cited as proof of arson.
For example, Vasquez's claim that "brown rings" found on the concrete front porch were evidence of an accelerant was, Hurst wrote, "baseless speculation ... when the puddles of fire-hose water evaporate, they often leave brown material trapped in the surface."
Hurst ridiculed testimony that burn marks found under carpet tiles were proof of an accelerant. "A liquid accelerant will not burn underneath a tile on the floor any more than it will underneath an aluminum threshold," he wrote.
Vasquez testified that fire was started in three separate places, but Hurst said that because flashover had occurred, "all the burn areas were clearly contiguous. ... joined by obvious [heat] radiation."
According to Hurst's report, "most of the conclusions reached by the fire marshal would be considered invalid in light of current knowledge."
Four days before the scheduled execution, Reaves attached Hurst's report to a petition seeking relief from Texas' highest court, the Court of Criminal Appeals, and from the governor.
"I didn't see any way the court was going to deny us a hearing on it," Reaves said. "No one could in good conscience go forward with that evidence."
The response from local prosecutors included a two-paragraph affidavit from Ronnie Kuykendall, the brother of Willingham's former wife. He said that Stacy, who had divorced Willingham while he was on Death Row, had recently visited him, then gathered the family to say that he had confessed.
But she said in an interview that was untrue. At the time of the trial, she said she had believed in her husband's innocence, but over the years, after studying the evidence and the trial testimony, she became convinced he was guilty.
In their final meeting, however, he did not confess, she told the Tribune.
Prosecutors also said the Hurst report, even if true, did not amount to what the courts call newly discovered evidence. They said that Willingham's attorneys should have been able to present the argument years earlier.
The courts and Gov. Rick Perry declined to halt the execution.
`He knew it was too late'
On the day of Willingham's execution, his father and step-mother, Gene and Eugenia Willingham, spent four hours with him, then said their goodbyes.
"He didn't want us worrying over him," his father said. "He said he'd be OK."
Though their son had earlier found hope in Hurst's report, he was realistic.
"He knew it was too late," Eugenia Willingham said. "He said, `I'm going.'"
At 6 p.m., Willingham was brought to the death chamber at the prison at Huntsville. In a final statement, he avowed his innocence, said goodbye to friends and hurled expletives at his former wife, who had come to witness the execution.
That night, the Willinghams drove back home to Ardmore, Okla. Gene Willingham said he did not want to be in Texas anymore.
"Texas says they don't kill innocent people," he said. "But they sure killed an innocent person with him."
After the execution, Pat Cox, Willingham's cousin, said she got a call from a lawyer in the governor's office. He told Cox what she already knew: that Perry had refused to grant a stay.
Then, Cox said, "he gave everybody in the family his condolences."
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Post by Chris2 on Jan 9, 2005 3:38:40 GMT -6
Navarro County man executed despite attorney's appeals By CINDY V. CULP Tribune-Herald staff writer
A Navarro County man was executed Tuesday night, after appeals courts denied him a stay despite based on what his attorney says is new evidence in the case.
Cameron Todd Willingham, 36, was executed for the deaths of his three daughters, who died when their Corsicana house caught on fire in December 1991. State officials said trial testimony proved Willingham poured a combustible liquid on the floor throughout his home and then intentionally set the fire.
According to autopsy results, Willingham's 2-year-old daughter, Amber Louis Kuykendall, and 1-year-old twins, Karmon Diane Willingham and Kameron Marie Willingham, died of acute carbon monoxide poisoning from smoke inhalation.
West attorney Walter M. Reaves Jr. asked the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for a stay of execution Friday. In the petition for the stay, Reaves said new developments in the study of fires show trial testimony from a Texas State Fire Marshal's Office investigator was flawed.
Specifically, the petition said the 20 indicators of arson the investigator listed in his report were bogus and that new investigation standards point to an accidental fire. The petition was filed on the grounds of newly discovered evidence and a claim of actual innocence, and asked for more time to re-examine the fire expert's testimony.
The Court of Criminal Appeals denied the petition Tuesday. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court also refused to issue a stay Tuesday, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry denied a request for a reprieve.
Reaves called the situation "sickening."
"To think that we would execute someone when there is a question about their innocence is just mind-boggling," Reaves said.
Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for the Texas attorney general's office, referred questions about the case to an opposition brief his office filed Tuesday.
The document says the fire investigation methods Reaves cites in the petition are not so newly developed that an examination of the case based on them can be counted as newly discovered evidence. The new standards were available when Willingham's first appeal was filed, it says.
Reaves has said Willingham was not able to enter the new information as evidence before because he and his family could not afford to hire an arson expert. It wasn't until last week that Austin expert Gerald Hurst agreed to examine the case for free.
The state's brief also lists numerous facts besides the fire testimony that it says contributed to Willingham's conviction, including the fact that he suffered minimal injuries in the fire and that a refrigerator was placed in front of the back door of the house, blocking it as a means of exit.
Reaves said Willingham's execution likely will not be the end of the case. He said he has an interest in pursuing it on Willingham's behalf posthumously and that death penalty opponents will likely also be interested in an effort to attach faces to claims that innocent people have been executed.
Cindy V. Culp can be reached at 757-5744 or at cculp@wacotrib.com.
(source: The Waco Tribune-Herald)
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Post by Chris2 on Jan 9, 2005 3:45:45 GMT -6
Hurst report on Willingham case
The fire investigation report of the Texas State Fire Marshal's Office in this case is a remarkable document. On first reading, a contemporary fire origin and cause analyst might well wonder how anyone could make so many critical errors in interpreting the evidence. However, when the report is looked at in the context of its time and in light of a few key advances that have been made in the fire investgation field in the last dozen years, it becomes obvious that the report more or less simply reflects the shortcomings in the state of the art prior to the beginning of serious efforts to introduce standards and to test old theories that had previously been accepted on faith.
Within a few weeks of the issuance of the Fire Marshal's report, the first edition of NFPA 921, "a Guide to Fire and Explosion Investigation" was published by the National Fire Protection Association. This landmark publication was developed by a committee of over 30 well-respected fire experts elected by NFPA members. It was assembled through a process which met all the requirements of an ASTM standard. Since then, NFPA 921 has become the de facto standard of care for the fire investigation community and will appear in its 5th edition in early 2004. As will be shown later, most of the conclusions reached by the Fire Marshall would be considered invalid in light of current knowledge.
The following is a list of key references containing information which is relevant to the present case and which became known only after the subject fire investigation:
1. NFPA 921, "A Guide to Fire and Explosion Investigation," The National Fire Protection Association, 1992, 1995, 1998, 2001
2. "Unconventional Wisdom: The Lessons of Oakland," The Fire and Arson Investigator, Vol. 43, No. 4, June 1993.
3. "The Lime Street Fire: Another Perspective," The Fire and Arson Investigator, Vol. 43, No. 1, Sept. 1992. [Cites a full-scale reproduction of a fire analogous to Willinghams in which a fire thought to start in a hall by an accelerant is shown to have resulted from flashover in an adjacent room. Test was run by prosecution, who dropped arson case.]
4. USFA Fire Burn Pattern Tests, FA 178, 7/97 Federal Emergency Management Agency, United States Fire Administration, 1997
5. Flammable and Combustible Liquid Spill/Burn Patterns, NIJ Report 604?00, 1997
6. "Kirk's Fire Investigation," Fifth Edition, Copyright 2002
The fire scene
The fire scene structure was a small wood-frame house. The areas relevant to origin and cause determination were a bedroom in the northeast corner of the house, connected via a doorway in the west wall to a hallway which ran north and south. The southern end of the hallway opened through the front (north) door onto a cement porch. The doorway to the porch had an aluminum threshhold plate.
The bedroom contained, presumably inter alia, two baby cribs, a bed and a heater. The room had one window in the south wall and two on the east wall. During the fire, extensive flaming had occurred out through the windows and there was extensive and variable fire damage to the floor as well as low burn on walls.
The heavy damage to the floor extended out the bedroom door into the hallway, where it ran a short way to the south and all the way north to the cement porch.
There was also periphal low charring to the walls adjacent to the northern portion of the hallway and to the exterior face of the north wall of of the bedroom adjacent to the porch.
The front door was consumed by fire, a screen door showed charring under its base and the wood under the aluminum threshhold was charred.
In the bedroom there was a window with remnants of crazed glass present.
The Fire Marshal's Conclusions vs. New Technology
In his report, the investigator for the Texas State Fire Marshal's Office announced that he had found more than 20 indicators of incendiarism. The indicators he cited as such were crazed glass, multiple origins, brown rings on a cement porch, low burns on walls in the Bedroom/hall area, V-patterns on walls, charring to the base of a screen door, a positive analysis for kerosene ("mineral spirits of kerosene"), burned wood under an aluminum threshhold, tiles burned from underneath, and an unnumbered occurrence of so-called "trailers," "pour patterns," and "puddle-configurations."
Trailers, pour patterns and puddle configurations: A decade ago, fire investigators would often look at a post-flashover fire scene and note various burn patterns of varying degree which appeared to be shaped like irregular pours of liquid. It was fairly common practice for the investigator to cite these patterns as proof of the use of an accelerant. With the advent of NFPA 921, it became more and more widely realized that post-flashover burning in a room or hallway produces floor burn patterns which cannot be differentiated from burns imagined to be caused by liquid accelerants. Full scale testing, as reported in reference 6 above, showed that post-flashover burning, even of relatively short duration, makes it impossible to identify accelerant burns visually. Thus it becomes impossible to visually identify accelerant patterns under these conditions.
The subject fire included post-flashover burning of considerable duration as evidence by the hallmark of flashover, flames pouring from windows and doors.
Multiple Origins: The Fire Marshall reported multiple fire origins. Actual multiple fire origins create a powerful case for arson. However, multiple origins can only be demonstrated when two or more areas of fire are completely isolated from one another. In this post-flashover fire, all of the burn areas were clearly contiguous in the sense that they were at least joined by obvious radiation and/or conduction mechanisms. The finding of multiple origins was inappropriate even in the context of the state of the art in 1991.
V-Patterns: Contrary to the Fire Marshal's report, V-patterns are only sometimes indicators of the point of origin of a fire and only rarely indicators of the use of a liquid accelerant. If a fire is snuffed out before flashover, a V-pattern, such as one above a coffee maker may suggest that the object below the V started the fire. However, once a fire passes the flashover stage, original patterns often become overwhelmed and new V-patterns will form from the burning of such common items as wooden door frames, combustible objects on the floor, etc. The effect of post-flashover burning on the appearance and disappearance of V-patterns parallels the effects on floor patterns.
Burned wood under aluminum threshhold: The fire Marshal alleged that the charring of wood under the aluminum threshhold was caused by a liquid accelerant burning under the threshhold. This phenomenon is clearly impossible. Liquid accelerants can no more burn under an aluminum threshhold than can grease burn in a skillet even with a loose-fitting lid. The charring of wood under a threshold is a common occurrence in post-flashover fires. The thermal radiation at doorways is extremely high because of the turbulent mixing of hot, fuel-rich gases with incoming fresh air. This radiation if often high enough to actually melt the threshhold (660 degrees C).
Ten years ago melted threshholds or charred underlying wood were routinely classified as accelerant-induced phenomena. Today, it is textbook knowledge that the effects are caused by radiation. See "Kirk's Fire Investigation," Fifth Edition, Copyright 2002.
Tiles burned from accelerant underneath: A liquid accelerant will not burn underneath a tile on the floor any more than it will under an aluminum threshhold. Burning underneath a tile is caused by the tile curling under post-flashover radiation and thereby exposing its lower surface to the heat. Kerosene-like materials will burn only with great difficulty even on the top surface of tile material. They tend to self-extinguish leaving unburned kerosene behind and have little effect on the tile. See reference 5 above, Flammable and Combustible Liquid Spill/Burn Patterns, NIJ Report 604?00, 1997
Crazed Glass: The idea that crazed glass is an indicator of the use of a liquid accelerant is now classified by the fire investigation as an "Old Wives Tale." Crazed glass is caused by the rapid chilling of hot glass by water used to extinguish the fire. This information was first published following the investigation of a fire storm in Oakland which destroyed many homes and later confirmed by laboratory tests. See reference 2 above, "Unconventional Wisdom: The Lessons of Oakland," 1993.
Brown rings on the cement porch: The identification of the presence of an accelerant based on brown rings on a cement floor is baseless speculation. A great deal of brown rust and soluble iron salts is created at fire scenes. When the puddles of fire hose water evaporate they often leave brown material trapped in the surface pores of the cement. The presence of al accelerant can only be established by chromatographic analysis in the laboratory.
The Positive Accelerant Analysis: The fire Marshal reported that kerosene was found in a single sample of wood taken from the bottom of the doorway adjacent to the cement porch. What the analyst actually reported was "mineral spirits of kerosene," which is not the same thing as kerosene. A burned can of charcoal lighter was also found on the same concrete floor. Charcoal lighter fluid belongs to the class of liquids labeled "mineral spirits of kerosene." Therefore, the presence of this material is an expected natural occurrence in the wake of a fire. Fluid from the can would be dispersed and floated across the concrete by the action of the immiscible water from the fire hoses.
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Post by Chris2 on Jan 9, 2005 3:51:26 GMT -6
TEXAS: 1990-2004 Percent of fires that are set
2004: 229 of 507 = 45% 2003: 274 of 550 = 50% 2002: 343 of 678 = 51% 2001: 217 of 487 = 45% 2000: 241 of 556 = 43% 1999: 216 of 481 = 45% 1998: 219 of 531 = 41% 1997: 209 of 433 = 48% 1996: 352 of 754 = 47% 1995: 333 of 624 = 53% 1994: 311 of 552 = 56% 1993: 276 of 524 = 53% 1992: 269 of 486 = 55% 1991: 247 of 415 = 60% 1990: 227 of 428 = 53%
Source: Texas State Fire Marshal's Office, Department of Insurance
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Post by Benty on Jan 9, 2005 13:13:10 GMT -6
This will get a lot of Anti's in a lather, but here goes.
Any man that doesn't die trying to save his or anyone else's children should die.
They call him a 'father'? He is a coward, and now he is a good coward, because he is dead.
God rest those three beautiful girls, and may that no good cowardly rotten bastard rots in a hotter fire in hell than his offspring did.
If I am wrong for speaking ill of the dead, I'll take my chances with God.
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Macklin
Inactive
The more clearly we see the sovereignty of God, the less preplexed we are by the calamities of men.
Posts: 1,701
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Post by Macklin on Jan 9, 2005 14:17:25 GMT -6
Chris...it is just like an anti to leave off something...
about your "Final Statement" You forgot to add the part :
Final Words:
"The only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent man convicted of a crime I did not commit. I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do. From God's dust I came and to dust I will return so the Earth shall become my throne. I gotta go, Road Dog."
He expressed love to someone named Gabby and then addressed his ex-wife, Stacy Kuykendall, who was watching about 8 feet away through a window and said several times, "I hope you rot in Hell, *witch*." He then attempted to maneuver his hand, strapped at the wrist, into an obscene gesture. His former wife showed no reaction to the outburst.
FACT OF THE CRIME The opinion of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeal summarized the offense as follows:
The evidence provided at the trial showed that on December 23, 1991, Willingham poured a combustible liquid on the floor throughout his home and intentionally set the house on fire, resulting in the death of his three children. According to autopsy reports, Amber, age two, and twins Karmon and Kameron, age 1, died of acute carbon monoxide poisoning as a result of smoke inhalation.
Neighbors of Willingham testified that as the house began smoldering, Willingham was "crouched down" in the front yard, and despite the neighbors' pleas, refused to go into the house in any attempt to rescue the children. An expert witness for the State testified that the floors, front threshold, and front concrete porch were burned, which only occurs when an accelerant has been used to purposely burn these areas. The witness further testified that this igniting of the floors and thresholds is typically employed to impede firemen in their rescue attempts.
The testimony at trial demonstrates that Willingham neither showed remorse for his actions nor grieved the loss of his three children. Willingham's neighbors testified that when the fire "blew out" the windows, Willingham "hollered about his car" and ran to move it away from the fire to avoid its being damaged. A fire fighter also testified that Willingham was upset that his dart board was burned. One of Willingham's neighbors testified that the morning following the house fire, Christmas Eve, Willingham and his wife were at the burned house going through the debris while playing music and laughing.
CRIMINAL HISTORY/PUNISHMENT PHASE EVIDENCE The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals summarized the evidence presented during the punishment phase of Willingham's trial as follows: At the punishment phase of trial, testimony was presented that Willingham has a history of violence. He has been convicted of numerous felonies and misdemeanors, both as an adult and as a juvenile, and attempts at various forms of rehabilitation have proven unsuccessful.
The jury also heard evidence of Willingham's character. Witnesses testified that Willingham was verbally and physically abusive toward his family, and that at one time he beat his pregnant wife in an effort to cause a miscarriage. A friend of Willingham's testified that Willingham once bragged about brutally killing a dog. In fact, Willingham openly admitted to a fellow inmate that he purposely started this fire to conceal evidence that the children had been abused.
Dr. James Grigson testified for the state at punishment. According to his testimony, Willingham fits the profile of a sociopath whose conduct becomes more violent over time, and who lacks a conscience. Grigson explained that a person with this degree of sociopathy commonly has no regard for other people's property or for other human beings. He expressed his opinion that an individual demonstrating this type of behavior can not be rehabilitated in any manner, and that such a person certainly poses a continuing threat to society.
PROCEDURAL HISTORY The Director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has lawful and valid custody of Willingham pursuant to a judgment and sentence of the 13th Judicial District Court of Navarro County, Texas. On August 20, 1993, the jury found Willingham guilty of capital murder and, after a separate punishment phase hearing, the trial court imposed a sentence of death.
Willingham's judgment and sentence were affirmed on direct appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari review on October 30, 1995. Willingham then filed a state writ of habeas corpus on which the trial court recommended denying relief. The Court of Criminal Appeals denied the writ of habeas corpus on the findings of the trial court. The U.S. Supreme court denied Willingham's certiorari petition on June 8, 1998.
Willingham filed a federal writ of habeas corpus in the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division on April 21, 1998. The state filed an answer and motion for summary judgment on July 1, 1998, and filed a supplemental answer on October 15, 1998. On July 25, 2000, the federal magistrate issued findings and conclusions and recommended that relief be denied.
Subsequently, the court adopted the magistrate's findings, granted the state's motion for summary judgment and denied Willingham's petition for federal habeas relief.
Willingham subsequently filed an application for a certificate of appealability in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The application was denied on February 17, 2003. After the appellate court also denied Willingham's motion for rehearing, he filed a timely petition for writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court on July 21, 2003. The Supreme Court denied his petition for certiorari review on November 3, 2003.
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Post by Tozzie on Jan 9, 2005 19:30:12 GMT -6
Getting it wrong in Texas'It was just a fire."That's what a renowned arson investigator said of a 1991 fire that claimed the lives of three little girls. He said it may well have been an accident. Unfortunately, Texas' justice system was too blind to consider that investigator's analysis as it condemned Cameron Todd Willingham to death for setting the fire that killed his 3 children. The result: Texas last year may well have executed an innocent man. As Tribune reporters Steve Mills and Maurice Possley detailed in an astonishing report last month, the case against Willingham was built atop one hollow brick after another. Many of the claims made at trial by fire investigators were based on theories that since have been repudiated by scientific advances. Four fire experts who reviewed the case at the request of the Tribune found the investigation to be seriously flawed. They said it was possible the fire was merely an accident. The Texas deputy state fire marshal who investigated the case testified at Willingham's trial that the melted aluminum threshold was evidence that an accelerant had been used to set the fire. He was wrong. A fire that started without accelerant, new research shows, could have burned hot enough to melt the threshold. The fact that traces of charcoal lighter fluid were found under the front threshold, the fire marshal testified, also provided evidence accelerant was used to light the fire. Wrong again. Firefighters' hoses may well have propelled the plastic container of lighter fluid that had been on the porch under the threshold. He claimed that "brown rings" found on the concrete front porch also pointed to use of an accelerant. Wrong. Such rings can be left when puddles of fire-hose water evaporate. Burn marks found under carpet tiles and the crackly "crazed" glass also provided proof that an accelerant was used, according to the fire marshal's testimony. Wrong. In fact, this fire marshal apparently had never met a fire he didn't think was arson. At least that's what he said during Willingham's trial. He stated that during his career, nearly every fire he ever investigated was arson--a statement fire experts who reviewed this case for the Tribune found astonishing and incredulous. Prosecutors offered up an unreliable jailhouse snitch on psychiatric medication who claimed Willingham confessed to him. They also based their case on the suggestion that Willingham didn't appear to be aggressive enough about getting his children out of the 1991 fire and that he didn't appear as grief-stricken afterward as he should have been. They offered a questionable motive: He wanted more time for drinking beer and throwing darts. Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Texas judges had access to the report by the prominent scientist, Gerald Hurst, that sharply questioned whether this fire was set by an arsonist. They set the report aside. Willingham was executed last February. That's what passes for justice in Texas. The Willingham case undermines the notion that we execute only those we know to be guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt." It should send a shiver across the nation. (source: Editorial, Chicago Tribune) So these "experts" read a few reports and determined that the investigator at the scene who actually looked at the scene was wrong. You can put two "experts" on a witness stand one for the defense and one for the prosecution and you will get two totally different answers from the "experts" yes I think we should rush to get rid of the death penalty because of an article written by unbiased reporters proved a innocent man was executed @@@@. Get real show me some real evidence not a newspaper article
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Post by Chris2 on Jan 10, 2005 3:59:58 GMT -6
Obviously can't read, silly boy. This is not really about experts disagreeing. This is about an expert using criminological techniques in 1991 that were proven to be unreliable or even false shortly after he conducted his investigation. The forensics used to convict Willingham is DISCREDITED and can no longer be used to convict anyone. There isn't really any disagreement about that. Got it?
Well, this newspaper article is based on real evidence, state-of-the-art science as described in the Hurst report. What's missing is real evidence that could be used to convict Willingham. Maybe you should focus on that...
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Post by Joy wo login on Jan 10, 2005 9:19:37 GMT -6
excellent post Chris. I found it interesting that Dr. Grigson, also know as Dr Death whom the psychiatric field has dismissed him from the ranks of "psychology" because he doesn' t know anything.
Also, let's remember another man was just released on this same type of evidence.. Willis.
I hope this guys lawyer and family fight all the way to prove he was innocent.
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Post by MrCoffee on Jan 10, 2005 18:09:15 GMT -6
It's that information there that makes me doubt that he was actually innocent. Even if they couldn't find evidence that was conclusive, using today's techniques at arson investigation, they would have most likely found him guilty anyway.
If my house were on fire, and my family were in it, a dart board would be the last thing I would be concerned about. And, you can always get another car. The behavior that he exhibited while his house was burning, and the day after, just did not make any sense to me. I don't care about current technology, and who they can dig up to discredit an arson investigator. That man's character is what sealed his own fate.
MrCoffee
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