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This is an article about a brave and brilliant bit of journalism that appeared in The New Yorker a year ago last month. Its author was David Grann, and it was titled "Trial By Fire: Did Texas execute an innocent man?"
The answer to the title is: "Probably." The man in question, Cameron Todd Willingham, was executed in 2004 for the murder of his three young daughters, Amber, Karmon, and Kameron. The alleged murder weapons were fire and smoke. On the morning of December 23rd, 1991, as his children lay sleeping, Willingham allegedly poured a "liquid accelerant" (such as kerosene or lighter fluid) thoughout his young family's small two-bedroom home in the little Texan town of Corsicana, and set it ablaze.
"Trial By Fire" is a magnificent story, because it chronicles a probable injustice not by immediately exonerating Willingham, but by first appearing to confirm his guilt. Grann's narrative begins with a slow, dispassionate account of the events of that ugly morning, before subtly switching perspectives to follow the apparently heroic quests of the forensic investigators upon whose testimony the prosecution's case would rest. They are Douglas Fogg and Manuel Vazquez; the former a decorated war hero, who had, by December '91, been fighting fires for twenty years, and the latter a Texan arson expert given to such windy proclamations as "Fire does not destroy evidence; it creates it" and "The fire tells the story. I am just the interpretor."
Engaging in a bit of editorial time-travel, Grann follows the investigators through the remains of Willingham's home:
As [Vazquez] and Fogg removed some of the clutter, they noticed deep charring along the base of the walls. Because gases become buoyant when heated, flames ordinarily burn upward. But Vasquez and Fogg observed that the fire had burned extremely low down, and that there were peculiar char patterns on the floor, shaped like puddles.
Vasquez's mood darkened. He followed the "burn trailer" – the path etched by the fire – which led from the hallway into the children's bedroom. Sunlight filtering through the broken windows illuminated more of the irregularly shaped char patterns. A flammable or combustible liquid doused on a floor will cause a fire to concentrate in these kinds of pockets, which is why investigators refer to them as "pour patterns" or "puddle configurations."
The fire had burned through layers of carpeting and tile and plywood flooring. Moreover, the metal springs under the children's beds had turned white – a sign that intense heat had radiated beneath them. Seeing that the floor had some of the deepest burns, Vasquez deduced that it had been hotter than the ceiling, which, given that heat rises, was, in his words, "not normal."
The investigators discover other signs of arson. The placement of a refrigerator in front of one of the home's exits; the presence of "crazed glass" (glass which has cracked because of sudden, extreme temperature change); gasoline residue on the home's front steps; and, most damningly, V-pattern burn marks on three different walls in various parts of the home, suggesting that the fire originated in multiple places. Soon, "both investigators had a clear vision of what had happened," Grann writes.
Someone had poured liquid accelerant throughout the children's room, even under their beds, then poured some more along the adjoining hallway and out the front door, creating a 'fire barrier' that prevented anyone from escaping; similarly, a prosecutor later suggested, the refrigerator in the kitchen had been moved to block the back-door exit. The house, in short, had been deliberately transformed into a death trap. […] The fire was now considered a triple homicide, and Todd Willingham […] became the prime suspect.
Willingham's guilt was ultimately decided by a single question. The fire experts wanted to know: Had he donned shoes before leaving the house? The answer was no. "Vasquez was now convinced that Willingham had killed his children," Grann writes. "If the floor had been soaked with a liquid accelerant and the fire had burned low, as the evidence suggested, Willingham could not have run out of the house the way he had described without badly burning his feet. A medical report indicated that his feet had been unscathed." The investigators concluded that Grann must have run out of the house, pouring accelerant behind him.
Reading the story, the case seems closed. One wonders how the remainder of the text could possibly justify the ambiguity of Grann's title. Did Texas execute an innocent man? Obviously not. (This effect may be somewhat diminished for those discovering the story here for the first time, as my introduction gives away the game.)
Such certainty begins to wear as Grann recounts Willingham's trial and we witness dubious testimonies making their way into the record. Willingham's Iron Maiden and Led Zeppelin posters are said to be evidence of "cultive-type activities" (sic) and likely indicators of Satanism. A psychiatrist says Willingham is an obvious sociopath, though he's never met the man.
Still, the prosecution's case is overwhelming. Eyewitnesses to the fire's immediate aftermath report that Willingham was behaving strangely – too cool, too in control. One of Willingham's fellow prisoners claims that Willingham has confessed his guilt. And, of course, the evidence of arson is inarguable. Vazquez, the fiire investigator, says: "The fire does not lie." Willingham is sentenced to death.
Tthese discoveries were made late. Dr. Hurst received the Willingham file only weeks before Willingham's scheduled execution. He got a preliminary report out to Texas in record time – "in such a rush he didn't pause to fix the typos," according to Grann.
In Texas, there was no authoritative body with sufficient expertise to analyze Dr. Hurt's report. In fact, there is no evidence that those who received the report read it, even as they rejected Willingham's last round of appeals. Willingham was killed on February 17th, at 6:40 p.m.
The Innocence Project became interested in Willingham's case later that year, and a small group of anti-death penalty activists began the long process of turning Willingham into an example. Grann's New Yorker article, along with a more succinct piece in th Chicago Tribune, gained the case widespread attention late last year. As a result, Willingham is likely to very soon become the first modern American prisoner to be executed and subsequently exonerated.
Willingham is in the news this week because of eleventh-hour attempts to stall the exoneration process. One might sympathize with them. Indeed, it is not absolutely certain that Willingham is innocent. The more salient fact, however, is that no one can say with absolute certainty that he isn't.
In my travels through the skeptical community, I have on occasion heard journalism described as "soft," unscientific, and generally of only middling use to the cause of skepticism. Yet the science that may exonerate Mr. Willingham has existed for a long time. It was a piece of creative nonfiction that propelled his case into the spotlight, made people think, and will soon shape the way capital punishment is discussed in the only advanced, democratic nation on the planet still cleaving to the practice.
The kind of make-believe science that convicted Todd Willingham is nothing but divination – it is tea-leaf reading, with the tea leaves replaced with ash and soot. It is the kind of subtle witchcraft that only a very specialized kind of expert could recognize as such, and without quick-learning, impassioned journalists like Mr. Grann stalking the planet, we may never have learned of it.
Journalism, at its best, is an act of skepticism performed publicly. Mr. Grann's article is a perfect example of the form. From the JREF to him, a big thank-you for doing his job so well, and for saving the lives of future innocents, who with any luck will have no idea how much they owe him.
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