STORY: 'I wanted answers': Ed Graf's ex-wife takes stand in murder retrial, by reporter Chris Davis, published bhy KCEN TV on September 13, 2014.
GIST: "Autopsy reports came Monday in the retrial of Ed Graf, who was given a new trial last year after he was convicted in 1988 of killing his two adopted sons in a Hewitt shed fire. On day five of testimony the jury heard about high levels of carbon monoxide in the boys' systems. Where that carbon monoxide came from, a medical examiner couldn't say. The state argued it was possible the boys were knocked out by a car running in a garage and then taken to the shed. But the defense's case is the boys breathed in a lot of the gas inside the shed after accidentally setting it on fire, and were knocked out before they could escape. “You certainly can become incapacitated from the effects of a fire prior to being burned,” said Dr. Jeffrey Barnard, chief medical examiner in Dallas County......... The state argued the boys could have been strangled to the point of unconsciousness and taken to the shed, which Graf then set on fire. Barnard said that was possible, but that neither Joby, 9, nor Jason, 8, had more serious injuries like fractures or hemorrhaging. The autopsy reports also showed no signs the boys were tied up or drugged.........Jurors also heard Monday from the boys' mother, Clare Bradburn.........The day of the fire, she said Graf encouraged her to stay late at work; usually he would've been upset when she did that. Graf met her in the doorway to the utility room when she got home and told her they lost both boys. "He said, ‘Clare, Joby and Jason are dead.' That cold and callous,” Clare told the court. “I felt like my legs were cut off at the knees and someone had reached down and pulled my heart out of my chest.” Graf never comforted her, she said. And when volunteers came with equipment to remove the shed, she protested. She wanted it there in the morning to see it in better light. “I knew something was wrong. I wanted answers,” she said. She told jurors she was too late to stop it by the time she got outside, but on cross-examination from Graf's attorneys, she said she could have made more of a commotion to stop it.......... In their cross-examination of Bradburn, Graf's defense team focused on how good Graf was with the kids. Bradburn said he would help with their homework, take them to doctors' appointments, and their conduct at school actually improved when he got involved. At the end of her testimony Tuesday, Bradburn said she was convinced Graf killed her two boys, and refused to believe it might have been an accident."
http://www.kcentv.com/story/26775506/i-wanted-answers-ed-grafs-ex-wife-takes-stand-in-murder-retrial
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
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http://smithforensic.blogspot.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html
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Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog;
