PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Read my post of July 25, 2010, at the link below: "CHARLES SMITH BLOG AWARD; DAVID GRANN NOMINATED FOR EXPOSING FAULTY SCIENCE THAT LED TO WRONGFUL EXECUTION OF CAMERON TODD WILLINGHAM."
https://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2010/07/charles-smith-blog-award-new-yorkers.html
Read David Grann's superb post at:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog:
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "In 2014, Webb recanted his testimony from Willingham’s trial. He stated that Willingham never confessed to him and that he had testified after state prosecutor Jackson promised him leniency on his own criminal charge That same year, The Innocence Project filed a complaint against Jackson with the Texas State Bar, accusing him of failing to disclose to Willingham’s defense attorneys that Webb had been promised favorable treatment on an aggravated robbery conviction in exchange for his testimony. The organization also claimed the prosecutor had “violated core principles of the legal profession, and did so with terrible consequences … the execution of an innocent man. A Texas jury ultimately cleared Jackson of wrongdoing in 2017."
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Meanwhile, Willingham’s defense called only one witness—a babysitter who said the father of three loved his girls. “There was no expert testimony to counter the other fire investigators. No other witnesses brought forth to question any of the other evidence," David Grann, a staff writer at The New Yorker, told NPR. Willingham was convicted and subsequently sentenced to death in October 1992."
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STORY: "Is ‘Trial By Fire’ Based On A True Story? What Happened To Cameron Todd Willingham," by Reporter Monica Mercuri, published by Forbes, on February 19, 2025. (Contributor. Monica is an entertainment reporter covering TV, film, and music.)
GIST: "Did Texas execute an innocent man? This question lies at the heart of Trial By Fire, the gripping 2018 biographical drama starring Laura Dern. The film’s arrival on Netflix has propelled it to the No. 1 spot on the streamer, leaving viewers curious to learn more about the real-life case that inspired the movie.
Directed by Edward Zwick, Trial by Fire tells the story of Cameron Todd Willingham, a man who was convicted of arson resulting in the deaths of his three young children in 1991. The film explores Willingham’s controversial trial and the flaws in the evidence used against him, including questionable fire investigation methods and unreliable testimonies.
During his 12 years on death row, “Elizabeth Gilbert, an improbable ally, uncovers questionable methods and illogical conclusions in his case and battles with the state to expose suppressed evidence that could save him,” the synopsis reads. The film stars Dern, Jack O’Connell, Emily Meade, Jeff Perry and Jade Pettyjohn.
Who Is Cameron Todd Willingham?
Cameron Todd Willingham was born in Ardmore, Oklahoma, in 1968. Abandoned by his mother as a baby, he was raised by his father, Gene, and his stepmother, Eugenia, after Gene divorced Willingham’s mother. Willingham struggled in school and snuffed paint as a teenager, according to an in-depth report by The New Yorker.
When he was 17 years old, Oklahoma’s Department of Human Services evaluated him. “He likes ‘girls,’ music, fast cars, sharp trucks, swimming, and hunting, in that order," the report said. Willingham dropped out of high school and was arrested for driving under the influence, stealing a bicycle, shoplifting, and more.
Willingham met his wife, Stacy Kuykendall, in 1988 when she was a senior in high school. According to The New Yorker, Stacy also came from a difficult background. When she was four years old, her stepfather strangled her mother to death during a domestic dispute. Some neighbors also claimed that Willingham also physically abused Stacy.
What Happened On Dec. 23, 1991?
On Dec. 23, 1991, a fire broke out at the family’s home in Corsicana, Texas. Willingham, then 23 years old, lived there with his wife, Stacy, and their three daughters: two-year-old Amber Kuykendall and one-year-old twins Karmon and Kameron Willingham. Cameron escaped the blaze with minor injuries, while Stacy was out shopping for Christmas presents. Tragically, all three children passed away in the fire.
When Todd Willingham made it out of the house, witness Diane Barbee said he was screaming, “My babies are burning up!” He then found a stick and broke the children’s bedroom windows. When firefighters arrived, he told them that his wife had gone out earlier that morning and that he had been jolted from sleep by Amber screaming, “Daddy! Daddy!”
“My little girl was trying to wake me up and tell me about the fire,” he said, adding, “I couldn’t get my babies out.” News of the tragedy spread through Corsicana, a small city north of Waco. The community gathered together to help the Willinghams pay for funeral arrangements as fire investigators worked to determine the cause of the blaze.
Who Started The Deadly Fire?
According to The New Yorker, four days after the fire, Assistant Fire Chief Douglas Fogg and Deputy Fire Marshal Manuel Vasquez inspected the property. Upon opening the back door, they observed that a refrigerator was blocking the exit, leaving only a narrow space to squeeze through.
Vasquez said he followed the “burn trailer”—the path created by the fire—which led from the hallway into the children’s bedroom. Fogg also examined a piece of glass from one of the broken windows and noticed a spiderweb-like pattern. This pattern, according to investigators, indicated that the fire had burned fast and hot, suggesting it had been fueled by a liquid accelerant.
Ultimately, Vasquez identified three points of origin for the fire: the hallway, the children’s bedroom, and the front door. He later testified that multiple points of origin pointed to a single conclusion: the fire was “intentionally set by human hands.” Vasquez claimed that an accelerant had been poured throughout the children’s room, including under their beds, and along the hallway leading to the front door, creating what he described as a “fire barrier,” The New Yorker reported.
What Happened At Cameron Todd Willingham’s Trial?
Willingham quickly emerged as the prime suspect after fire investigators concluded it was arson. On Feb. 13, 1992, Willingham was indicted on charges of capital murder. During his trial, prosecutors argued that he had deliberately set the fire to kill his children. Willingham, however, insisted that he had been asleep in the house when the fire broke out.
In Aug. 1992, jailhouse informant Johnny Webb was the first witness called by state prosecutor John Jackson to testify for the prosecution. Webb told the jury that while they were both at Navarro County Jail, Willingham confessed to squirting lighter fluid around the home, setting it ablaze, and killing the girls to cover up Stacy’s physical abuse of one of the children, despite any physical evidence, according to The Marshall Project.
Meanwhile, Willingham’s defense called only one witness—a babysitter who said the father of three loved his girls. “There was no expert testimony to counter the other fire investigators. No other witnesses brought forth to question any of the other evidence," David Grann, a staff writer at The New Yorker, told NPR. Willingham was convicted and subsequently sentenced to death in October 1992.
Did Webb Admit He Was Lying About His Testimony?
In 2014, Webb recanted his testimony from Willingham’s trial. He stated that Willingham never confessed to him and that he had testified after state prosecutor Jackson promised him leniency on his own criminal charge.
That same year, The Innocence Project filed a complaint against Jackson with the Texas State Bar, accusing him of failing to disclose to Willingham’s defense attorneys that Webb had been promised favorable treatment on an aggravated robbery conviction in exchange for his testimony. The organization also claimed the prosecutor had “violated core principles of the legal profession, and did so with terrible consequences … the execution of an innocent man.”
A Texas jury ultimately cleared Jackson of wrongdoing in 2017.
Who Is Elizabeth Gilbert?
Elizabeth Gilbert was a French teacher and playwright from Houston who got to know Willingham while he was on death row. She was introduced to the case after a friend who worked at an organization that opposed the death penalty encouraged her to volunteer as a pen pal for an inmate on death row, according to The New Yorker.
Willingham told Gilbert that he was innocent and that if someone had poured accelerant through the house, the real killer is still out there. Although she didn’t believe him at first, she started asking questions after examining the eyewitness accounts and noticing several contradictions.
Witnesses’ testimonies grew more damning after authorities concluded that Willingham was guilty of murder. For example, in Diane Barbee’s initial statement to authorities, she portrayed Willingham as “hysterical” and described the front of the house exploding. However, on January 4th, after arson investigators began suspecting Willingham of murder, Barbee suggested that he could have gone back inside to rescue his children, as she had initially seen only “smoke coming from out of the front of the house”—smoke that was not “real thick,” The New Yorker reported.
Father Monaghan’s first statement depicted Willingham as a devastated father who had to be repeatedly restrained from risking his life. However, in his second statement, he said that Willingham was “too emotional” and that he had a “gut feeling” Willingham had “something to do with the setting of the fire.”
Gilbert even sat down with Stacy, who was adamant that nothing unusual had happened in the days before the fire. Although Vasquez, the arson expert, recalled finding the space heater off, Stacy was sure that it had been on, at least on the day of the incident, which was a cold winter day.
What Happened To Elizabeth Gilbert?
Shortly before Willingham’s execution in February 2004, Elizabeth Gilbert was involved in a car accident that left her paralyzed from the neck down. Although doctors believed she would never walk again, Gilbert told The New Yorker in 2010 that after more than five years of rehabilitation, she was able to take her first steps with the help of a walker.
Gilbert was able to attend the premiere of Trial by Fire at a festival in Telluride. “I had a tremendous amount of grief and guilt that I had failed him,” she told Refinery29 in May 2019. “The [process of] making the movie and rereading his letters and actually hearing the real words from his last letter to me [made me realize] I was the right person at the right time—even though we didn’t have the success we wanted.”
In Trial By Fire, Gilbert isn’t able to see Willingham’s final moments because of a car crash. But in real life, Gilbert’s crash happened before Willingham’s execution, but she was still in the hospital when he died. She told Refinery29 that the incident impacted how she processed Willingham’s execution at the time.
"I had a traumatic spinal cord injury, so it took seven years before I could even function on my own. I hadn’t really talked about the grief. When [Willingham’s] last letter was read to me in the hospital by my daughter, my mind didn’t take any information because my body was demanding so much," she explained. Gilbert added that speaking to Dern and the film's creators “became an opportunity for me to do the grieving and I hadn't been able to do.”
Where Is Cameron Todd Willingham Now?
Cameron Todd Willingham appealed his execution numerous times after his conviction. In 2002, a federal district court denied Willingham’s writ without even granting a hearing. He then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but in December 2003, he was notified that it had declined to hear his case. Fifteen members of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles also denied his petition. In his final plea, Governor Rick Perry refused to grant him a stay of execution, according to The New Yorker.
Willingham requested a final meal, and at 4 p.m. on February 17, he was served three barbecued pork ribs, two orders of onion rings, fried okra, three beef enchiladas with cheese, and two slices of lemon cream pie. He was executed later that day.
In 2005, Texas created a government commission to investigate allegations of error and misconduct by forensic scientists. In mid-August, renowned fire scientist Craig Beyler, who was hired by the commission, completed his investigation and released his results.
As The New Yorker reported, Beyler concluded that “investigators in the Willingham case had no scientific basis for claiming that the fire was arson, ignored evidence that contradicted their theory, had no comprehension of flashover and fire dynamics, relied on discredited folklore, and failed to eliminate potential accidental or alternative causes of the fire." He said their approached "seemed to deny ‘rational reasoning’ and was more 'characteristic of mystics or psychics.’"
Trial by Fire is streaming on Netflix. Watch the official trailer below.://www.forbes.com/sites/monicamercuri/2025/02/19/is-trial-by-fire-based-on-a-true-story-what-happened-to-cameron-todd-willingham/"
The entire story can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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 found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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