"For DeHaan and Craig Beyler, a fire expert hired by the science commission to study the Willingham investigation, the lab results raise troubling questions about Vasquez's theories:
• The fire did not burn long enough to destroy all signs of an accelerant inside the house, yet the lab found nothing — hard to believe, given the amount of liquid needed to burn large puddle patterns in the bedroom and hall, DeHaan said.
• Vasquez's belief that Willingham started a separate fire at the front door, based largely on the accelerant found under the threshold, was inconsistent with witnesses who reported seeing no flames on the porch during early stages of the fire, Beyler said.
In addition, Beyler said, video and photos of the fire scene reveal no evidence of separate fires. Instead, they show a fire that probably began in the bedroom before spreading into the hall and to the porch."
REPORTER: CHUCK LINDELL: THE STATESMAN;
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BACKGROUND: (Wikipedia); Cameron Todd Willingham (January 9, 1968 – February 17, 2004), born in Carter County, Oklahoma, was sentenced to death by the state of Texas for murdering his three daughters—two year old Amber Louise Kuykendall, and one year old twins Karmon Diane Willingham and Kameron Marie Willingham— by setting his house on fire. The fire occurred on December 23, 1991 in Corsicana, Texas. Lighter fluid was kept on the front porch of Willingham’s house as evidenced by a melted container found there. Some of this fluid may have entered the front doorway of the house carried along by fire hose water. It was alleged this fluid was deliberately poured to start the fire and that Willingham chose this entrance way so as to impede rescue attempts. The prosecution also used other arson theories that have since been brought into question. In addition to the arson evidence, a jailhouse informant claimed Willingham confessed that he set the fire to hide his wife's physical abuse of the girls, although the girls showed no other injuries besides those caused by the fire. Neighbors also testified that Willingham did not try hard enough to save his children. They allege he "crouched down" in his front yard and watched the house burn for a period of time without attempting to enter the home or go to neighbors for help or request they call firefighters. He claimed that he tried to go back into the house but it was "too hot". As firefighters arrived, however, he rushed towards the garage and pushed his car away from the burning building, requesting firefighters do the same rather than put out the fire. After the fire, Willingham showed no emotion at the death of his children and spent the next day sorting through the debris, laughing and playing music. He expressed anger after finding his dartboard burned in the fire. Firefighters and other witnesses were suspicious of how he reacted during and after the fire. Willingham was charged with murder on January 8, 1992. During his trial in August 1992, he was offered a life term in exchange for a guilty plea, which he turned down insisting he was innocent. After his conviction, he and his wife divorced. She later stated that she believed that Willingham was guilty. Prosecutors alleged this was part of a pattern of behavior intended to rid himself of his children. Willingham had a history of committing crimes, including burglary, grand larceny and car theft. There was also an incident when he beat his pregnant wife over the stomach with a telephone to induce a miscarriage. When asked if he had a final statement, Willingham said: "Yeah. 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." However, his final words were directed at his ex-wife, Stacy Willingham. He turned to her and said "I hope you rot in hell, bitch" several times while attempting to extend his middle finger in an obscene gesture. His ex-wife did not show any reaction to this. He was executed by lethal injection on February 17, 2004. Subsequent to that date, persistent questions have been raised as to the accuracy of the forensic evidence used in the conviction, specifically, whether it can be proven that an accelerant (such as the lighter fluid mentioned above) was used to start the fatal fire. Fire investigator Gerald L. Hurst reviewed the case documents including the trial transcriptions and an hour-long videotape of the aftermath of the fire scene. Hurst said, "There's nothing to suggest to any reasonable arson investigator that this was an arson fire. It was just a fire. Legendary "Innocence" lawyer Barry Scheck asked participants at a conference of the National Association of Criminal Defence Lawyers held in Toronto in August, 2010, how Willingham, who had lost his family to the fire, must have felt to hear the horrific allegations made against him on the basis of the bogus evidence, "and nobody pays any attention to it as he gets executed." "It's the Dreyfus Affair, and you all know what that is," Scheck continued. "It's the Dreyfus AffaIr of the United States. Luke Power's music video "Texas Death Row Blues," can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2010/09/cameron-todd-willingham-texas-death-row_02.html
For an important critique of the devastating state of arson investigation in America with particular reference to the Willingham and Willis cases, go to:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/01/fire-investigation-great-read-veteran.html
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""The fire does not lie. It tells me the truth,"" the Statesman story by Chuck Lindell published on March 12, 2011 begins, under the heading, "Fire investigator in spotlight as Willingham review nears end: Discolored bedsprings indicate Cameron Todd Willingham committed arson, a fire official said in 1992. Now that's in dispute."
"With these words in 1992, Deputy State Fire Marshal Manuel Vasquez told jurors he had found unshakable evidence proving that Cameron Todd Willingham set fire to his Corsicana home in a manner calculated to impede firefighters and kill his three young daughters," the story continues.
"But in the two decades since Willingham was sentenced to death for murder by arson, scientific progress has disproved or cast doubt on the "arson indicators" Vasquez so confidently listed in court.
Now the tables have turned, and it is Vasquez's performance — as the prosecution's star witness and at the fire scene — that is under scrutiny as the Texas Forensic Science Commission nears the end of its inquiry into the science used to convict and execute Willingham.
That is, if the commission finishes its 2½-year-old investigation at all.
Spurred by John Bradley, the Williamson County prosecutor who was appointed chairman by Gov. Rick Perry midway through the case, the commission has asked Attorney General Greg Abbott to determine whether it has jurisdiction to investigate the Willingham case. Legal briefs were due last week, and Abbott's opinion is due by July 30.
If Abbott gives the green light, the commission's next step will be to draft a final report on its Willingham findings. Commission members declined to discuss the report or its contents, but judging by their earlier statements, there are two essential questions:
• Was the arson finding based on valid science?
• Were fire officials negligent in their investigation and trial testimony?
In the spotlight is Vasquez, who had 30 years of firefighting experience, including 17 years as an investigator, when he told jurors that he had discovered numerous signs of arson at Willingham's house.
But thanks to improved scientific understanding of fire behavior, it is now known that Vasquez was wrong about several key points.
Contrary to his testimony, blown-out windows, melted aluminum thresholds and discolored bedsprings are not sure signs that an ignitable liquid was present, nor do accelerant-fueled fires burn far hotter than "normal" ones.
Other indicators that Vasquez attributed to a liquid accelerant — including burn patterns on the floor, brown stains on concrete and peeled vinyl tiles — also are found in accidental or natural fires, and modern investigators are cautioned against basing arson findings solely on such clues.
In fact, at least eight nationally known fire experts have said Vasquez — like many fire investigators of his day — had a poor knowledge of fire dynamics and misinterpreted or misunderstood every indicator that he presented to jurors as emphatic proof of arson and Willingham's guilt.
The state fire marshal's office, which employed Vasquez, still stands behind his arson ruling. Agency officials declined a request to be interviewed while the commission inquiry is pending.
But when he faced commission members in January, Assistant State Fire Marshal Ed Salazar defended the arson finding by noting that tests found the presence of an ignitable liquid under Willingham's front-door threshold.
In addition, most arson indicators noted by Vasquez can be caused by an ignitable liquid, Salazar said, adding that investigators must rely on their judgment and experience when determining a fire's cause.
"It ultimately comes to a judgment call," Salazar said.
But fire expert John DeHaan, author of "Kirk's Fire Investigation," a widely used textbook, said judgment based on unreliable data is useless. A liquid accelerant, DeHaan said, is only one possible explanation for the indicators found by Vasquez and another investigator, former Assistant Fire Chief Douglas Fogg of the Corsicana Fire Department.
"Taking five 'could be's' and making an absolute out of them was wrong," DeHaan said. "I can string a whole lot of 'possibles' together, but unless I have something that absolutely proves (arson), I shouldn't be reaching that conclusion."
The science commission will next discuss the Willingham case at its April meeting. Several members believe that, no matter how the attorney general rules, the panel should be able to report on improvements to the science of fire investigation, working from Vasquez's methods and findings.
If so, they'll be writing for posterity. Vasquez died in 1994. Willingham was executed 10 years later.
What investigator saw
Vasquez arrived at the Willingham home on Dec. 27, 1991, four days after the fatal fire, because the Corsicana Fire Department asked for help investigating a possible arson.
Walking jurors through his investigation, Vasquez said vague suspicions raised by the burned-away front door and broken bedroom windows were confirmed when he found patterns burned into the hall and bedroom floors. The burns, he said, could only have been caused by a poured liquid accelerant that had soaked into carpeting or puddled onto the floor.
The accelerant, he said, also caused deep charring in parts of the bedroom floor — consuming layers of carpet, tile and plywood — and uneven burning on the undersides of tile where the liquid had flowed, then burned.
The floor damage was suspicious by itself, Vasquez said: "Heat rises. So when I find that the floor is hotter than the ceiling, that's backwards, upside down. The only reason that the floor is hotter is because there was an accelerant."
Vasquez listed other signs of arson:
• Metal bedsprings yielded two clues — discoloration due to intense heat generated by a liquid accelerant, and the presence of flames below the bed, indicating that the fire spread via a liquid that had puddled underneath.
• Brown stains on the concrete porch, near the front door, revealed that a liquid accelerant had been "squirted there."
• A melted aluminum threshold at the front door was telling. The metal, he insisted, melts at 1,200 degrees, but a wood fire does not exceed 800 degrees. "The only thing that can cause that to react is an accelerant. You know, it makes the fire hotter," Vasquez said.
• Charred wood beneath the threshold could only have been caused by a burning liquid, Vasquez said. And, in fact, the wood provided investigators with the only positive lab test, of 11 administered at the Willingham house, for the presence of a combustible liquid.
• The positive test also explained something that had puzzled Vasquez — why the front door had completely burned away. Willingham, he said, splashed the accelerant on the door before leaving.
Vasquez also testified that Willingham lit three separate fires — a classic sign of arson — in the bedroom, in the hall and at the front door, in that order, because the pour patterns were not connected. By torching the hallway and front entrance, he added, Willingham intended to create a barrier for firefighters and ensure that his three daughters died.
In his closing arguments, prosecutor John Jackson assured jurors that Vasquez "can read those fires like a book" and urged them to pay particular attention to the pour patterns.
"This is Cameron Todd Willingham's confession of the crime burned into every puddle in the floor of that house," he said.
What scientists saw
By coincidence, the year Willingham was convicted, 1992, was a milestone in fire investigation.
The publication of "NFPA 921: Guide for Fire and Explosion Investigations" began to revolutionize the field by establishing science-based criteria for interpreting fire evidence. Aided by a growing number of studies using deliberately set blazes, the guide sought to debunk common arson mythology — for example, the notions that accelerant-fueled fires burn hotter or routinely produce conditions that can be identified on sight.
DeHaan, who set and analyzed hundreds of test fires, said he has reproduced every arson indicator cited by Vasquez without using an accelerant.
"When we started setting those fires, we realized (common knowledge) was wrong about fire behavior, about burning times, floor-level burns, spalling," he said. "I've created all of those without any ignitable liquids."
In fact, he said, liquid accelerants do not produce deep floor burns of the type Vasquez found in the Willingham house. "It won't work," he said. "It burns off the surface, and that's the end of it."
Puddle-shaped patterns and deep charring may be caused by falling fire debris or clothing, toys and other items that can burn for a sustained period, warns NFPA 921, which devotes considerable effort to helping investigators avoid misidentifying floor patterns. (See accompanying graphic for NFPA 921's take on Vasquez's other indicators.)
The same patterns are common in rooms, such as the Willingham children's bedroom, that sustain heavy fire damage or experience flashover, the near-simultaneous ignition of every burnable item when heat reaches a critical point, DeHaan said.
The only sure way to verify an accelerant is to collect samples for lab testing, NFPA 921 says.
In the Willingham fire, investigators collected 11 samples of broken glass, flooring and baseboards from inside the house and the front porch. Ten were negative. In the 11th, mineral spirits of kerosene — typical of charcoal lighter fluid — was found under the front-door threshold.
A melted plastic container of charcoal fluid was found on the front porch and became an eye-of-the-beholder piece of evidence. Those who believe Willingham was guilty see his murder weapon; those who proclaim his innocence believe leaking fluid reached the threshold with help from high-pressure fire hoses.
For DeHaan and Craig Beyler, a fire expert hired by the science commission to study the Willingham investigation, the lab results raise troubling questions about Vasquez's theories:
• The fire did not burn long enough to destroy all signs of an accelerant inside the house, yet the lab found nothing — hard to believe, given the amount of liquid needed to burn large puddle patterns in the bedroom and hall, DeHaan said.
• Vasquez's belief that Willingham started a separate fire at the front door, based largely on the accelerant found under the threshold, was inconsistent with witnesses who reported seeing no flames on the porch during early stages of the fire, Beyler said.
In addition, Beyler said, video and photos of the fire scene reveal no evidence of separate fires. Instead, they show a fire that probably began in the bedroom before spreading into the hall and to the porch.
'Pure fabrication'
DeHaan and Beyler agree that, given the lack of reliable scientific evidence of an accelerant, the cause of the Willingham fire should be labeled undetermined instead of arson.
But Bradley, a hard-nosed prosecutor who has called Willingham "a guilty monster," challenged the experts when they appeared before the commission in January. Bradley noted that other factors also figured into Vasquez's conclusions — particularly his interview with Willingham eight days after the fire.
That interrogation convinced him that Willingham, a petty criminal with a history of spousal abuse, was also a liar.
Willingham, Vasquez testified, showed no sign of smoke inhalation despite claiming he searched the burning bedroom to try to rescue his children. His bare feet were unhurt, making his claim of escape out the front door impossible because the accelerant-soaked hall floor was on fire at the time.
The injuries he did receive — singed hair, reddened skin and a two-inch burn on his back — were most likely self-inflicted, Vasquez surmised.
"What he said he'd done is inconsistent with the burn patterns in the house," Vasquez told jurors. "He told me a story of pure fabrication."
Beyler's report to the commission chastised Vasquez for engaging in unprofessional speculation, saying his conclusions were "nothing more than a collection of personal beliefs that had nothing to do with science-based arson investigation."
In January, however, Bradley reminded DeHaan and Beyler that NFPA 921 discusses the need to question witnesses and allows them to consider those statements when forming a conclusion about a fire's cause.
But DeHaan insisted that the proper role of an investigator is to develop theories based on physical evidence. Witness statements must be weighed against that evidence, he said."
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The story can be found at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/statesman_focus/fire-investigator-in-spotlight-as-willingham-review-nears-1317246.html?viewAsSinglePage=true
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be accessed at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
For a breakdown of some of the cases, issues and controversies this Blog is currently following, please turn to:
http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=120008354894645705&postID=8369513443994476774
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
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