The scene in Corsicana, Texas, on the morning of Dec. 23, 1991, was one of pure horror.
Witnesses said that Cameron Willingham stood in front of his wood-framed home as it was engulfed in flames pleading for someone to call 911 and screaming: “My babies are burning up!”
When firefighters arrived, they found him dressed only in trousers and with hair on his chest, eyelids and head singed. They had to handcuff him to a truck to prevent him from trying to break into the three-bedroom bungalow to rescue the infants. One officer received a black eye in the scuffle.
All three of his children — Amber, aged two, and one-year-old twins Karmon and Kameron — died.
When Willingham gave permission for authorities to search his home after the event he told them: “I’d just like to know why my babies were taken from me.”
That began a series of events that were to lead, 13 years later, to his own death at the hands of the state of Texas. Local fire investigators inspected the house to determine the cause of the blaze and concluded that Willingham, an unemployed car mechanic, had started it with lighter fuel in a deliberate act of arson.
He was convicted of homicide and sentenced to death in 1992 after a two-day trial in which only one defense witness was presented. Despite serious doubts from experts raised before his death, and despite his steadfast insistence of his innocence — he rejected a plea bargain in which he would have been given life in jail in return for pleading guilty — Willingham was administered the lethal injection in 2004 upon the final go-ahead of Texas Governor Rick Perry.
Now the specter of Willingham has come back to haunt Perry. Doubts about the execution have multiplied to such an extent that the Texas legislature ordered the state’s forensic science commission to carry out an official inquiry.
Its 51-page report, written by a nationally recognized expert on fire safety, Craig Beyler, tore apart the original case against Willingham on virtually every count. It found that the key evidence had no basis in modern fire science and that “a finding of arson could not be sustained.”
The report was particularly critical of one of the fire inspectors, who has since died, saying his findings were “nothing more than a collection of personal beliefs.”
Pressure over the case reached boiling point this week, prompted in part by a 16,000-word analysis by David Grann in The New Yorker magazine. The Texas commission invited Beyler to present his report in person yesterday, but on Wednesday night, Perry announced his decision to remove the head of the commission and two of its key members and replace them with a new board.
The first act of the incoming chairman was to cancel yesterday’s meeting and postpone any discussion of the Beyler report.
Texas is legendary for its enthusiastic approach to the death penalty. Yet even by the standards of Texan justice, Perry’s move has astounded death row opponents.
Sam Bassett, the removed head of the panel, said: “We should not fail to investigate important forensic issues in cases simply because there might be political ramifications.”
Perry’s spokesman denied any connection between the change of personnel and yesterday’s meeting.
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