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    Inferno: An Inquiry into the Willingham Fire
    Inferno: An Inquiry into the Willingham Fire
    Inferno: An Inquiry into the Willingham Fire
    Ebook146 pages1 hour

    Inferno: An Inquiry into the Willingham Fire

    By J Bennett Allen

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    About this ebook

    Instead of him saving her, Amber would save her daddy. She would save him by awakening him with her screams and pleas, by telling him of the fire, by taking his place in bed, by breathing in the smoke that would have filled his lungs instead of hers.

    The fire, however, would not be denied. Disguised first as justice and then as a needle, it would consume her father just as surely as it had Amber and her infant sisters.

    While much has been written of the trial, conviction and execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, the discussion has been limited to whether or not the fire that killed his children was caused by arson. This is the first book to investigate other possible causes of the fire that claimed initially three, and eventually four lives.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLynn Allen
    Release dateApr 9, 2011
    ISBN9780984271658
    Inferno: An Inquiry into the Willingham Fire
    Author

    J Bennett Allen

    I write of wrongful convictions and executions. My wife edits and publishes my work. We have three books now available on Amazon, each in print and Kindle format. The books are: The Skeptical Juror and The Trial of Byron Case The Skeptical Juror and The Trial of Cory Maye The Skeptical Juror and The Trial of Cameron Todd Willingham We have edited and published Smith's Guide to Habeas Corpus Relief, written by Zachary A. Smith, an inmate and jailhouse lawyer. We have seen far too many cases of prisoners defaulting on their right to appeal because they had no defense counsel or (worse) they had inept counsel who simply failed to file within the deadline. In most cases, the would-be petitioners are factually guilty of the crime for which they are imprisoned. In a disturbing number of the cases, the would-be petitioners are factually innocent of the crime for which they are imprisoned. In all cases, someone we have imprisoned has lost one of the few legal rights he or she has left. We hope Smith's Guide will mitigate the problem by allowing prisoners to work more closely with their counsel or, if need be, to file the petition for habeas corpus pro se. My next monograph will address the rate of wrongful convictions in American. You can read early drafts of most chapters at The Skeptical Juror blog (http://www.skepticaljuror.com). After reviewing a dozen estimates of the rate of wrongful conviction, and after presenting two separate analyses of my own, I argue that 10% of those we convict may in fact be innocent. Given that we have 2.5 million people incarcerated in this country, that means we may have a quarter of a million people behind bars for crimes they did not convict. Of those quarter million who may be wrongfully imprisoned, I am directly involved in efforts to free two of them: Byron Case (Missouri) and Michael Ledford (Virginia). You can learn of Byron Case from my book. You can learn of Michael Ledford from my blog.

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      Book preview

      Inferno - J Bennett Allen

      INFERNO

      AN INQUIRY INTO THE WILLINGHAM FIRE

      Published by J Bennett Allen on Smashwords

      Copyright 2011 by J Bennett Allen

      ###

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Visit the Skeptical Juror website at http://www.skepticaljuror.com

      ###

      Introduction

      Amber was once again drawn to the heater, to its bright flickering flame, to its warmth, to its forbidden mysteries and charms. Both Mommy and Daddy had caught her before, putting things too close to it. Daddy had even given her whuppings, but he was asleep in the other room, and Mommy was not even home.

      Perhaps she wanted to move some of the fire from the heater to her Little Tykes oven sitting nearby. Perhaps she simply wanted to put something inside the heater and watch it disappear.

      Maybe a piece of drawing paper. Maybe one of her socks, the one she wasn't wearing when she was pulled barely alive from the house. Maybe it was the sock that was never found.

      Whatever it was, when it burned it was scarier than the fire in the heater. It burned closer and closer to her finger and her thumb as she held it at arm's length. But it was so hot. It was the hottest, scariest thing she had felt, ever, so she flung it away, and then the curtain was on fire. The curtain between the heater and her little oven was on fire. She was going to get in trouble again. She was going to get another whupping.

      Fear of anger and whuppings, though, were quickly overcome by horror. The fire was growing larger and larger and scarier and scarier. She retreated as the fire climbed the wall to the ceiling. The smoke got inside her and made her cough. She could feel the heat on her skin, on her face and neck and shoulders. She had to get away, but the gate was there, blocking the doorway, keeping her from the safety of her Daddy's arms.

      Her sisters too were scared. They were crawling away as fast as they could, crawling towards the far corner of the room. One of them made it underneath the crib.

      Now the top of the room was on fire, and it was getting dark even though it was just morning outside. She couldn't breath and face burned, and her neck and her bare shoulders, and she wasn't even close to the fire. She didn't want to keep it a secret any more. She wanted her Daddy to save her. She screamed and screamed but he didn't come.

      So she did what her sisters could not do. She climbed the child gate and ran to her Daddy's room, screaming for him.

      Daddy, Daddy!

      She couldn't see him because the smoke was there too, in his room. It was everywhere. She could hear him though. He was yelling at her to run, to go outside. But the fire was there where he wanted her to run, and she wanted him to save her. She climbed into his bed, but he wasn't there.

      Instead of him saving her, she would save him. She would save him with her screams and her pleas, by awakening him, by telling him of the fire, by taking his place in the bed, by breathing in the smoke that would have filled his lungs instead of hers.

      It wasn't heroism that caused Amber to take her Daddy's place. A two-year-old cannot be heroic. She can only be afraid of fire and smoke and dark. She can only be expected to seek the safety of Mommy or Daddy. Amber did everything a two-year-old could and should do. She screamed, she climbed the gate, and she ran for help. In doing so, she bought a reprieve for her father.

      The fire, however, would not be denied. Disguised first as justice and then as a needle, it would eventually consume her father just as surely as it had consumed her sisters, just as surely as it consumed her.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Chapter 1: Overview

      Chapter 2: The House

      Chapter 3: What Willingham Told His Relatives and a Friend

      Chapter 4: What Willingham Told the Police

      Chapter 5: What Douglas Fogg Told the Jury

      Chapter 6: What James Palos Told the Jury

      Chapter 7: What Manuel Vasquez Told the Jury

      Chapter 8: What Manuel Vasquez Wrote in His Report

      Chapter 9: What the Neighbors Saw

      Chapter 10: What Today's Experts Say

      Chapter 11: Defense Theory

      Chapter 12: Volume Considerations

      Chapter 13: The Electrical System

      Chapter 14: The Space Heater

      Chapter 15: The Cause of the Willingham Fire

      Notes

      About the Author

      Chapter 1: Overview

      The house at 1213 West 11th Avenue in Corsicana, Texas burned on December 23, 1991.

      The house was then occupied by Cameron Todd Willingham, his two-year-old daughter Amber, and his one-year-old twin daughters Kameron and Karmon. Stacy Willingham, his wife and mother of the children, was not home at the time of the fire.

      Amber, Kameron and Karmon died in the fire. Cameron Todd Willingham escaped with some loss of head hair and singeing of the hair that remained; singed eyebrows, eyelashes, and chest hair; singed nasal hairs and soot in his throat; first degree burns on his face, ears, and neck; a two-inch burn on his right shoulder.

      Willingham was charged, tried, convicted, and executed for setting fire to his house and thereby murdering his daughters.

      Debate regarding the Willingham execution has centered around the issue of arson. The pre-eminent fire scientists of our time argue that the evidence of arson used against Willingham at his trial was based on outdated rules of thumb. They do not propose a cause of the fire, nor do they explicitly rule out arson as a possibility. They argue only that a determination of arson was not justified based on the evidence, given today's understanding of fire cause and behavior.

      Those defending the conviction argue that the experts who testified at the Willingham trial made a state-of-the-art determination of arson. Though a few die-hards argue still that the evidence would support a determination of arson even today, most argue instead that Willingham's behavior before and after the fire was sufficiently indicative of guilt to justify a conviction, even in the absence of a formal arson conclusion.

      Those defending the conviction argue further that the gas and electrical systems were excluded as a cause of the fire, and that no one has disputed that exclusion. They argue that arson remains the only possible cause of the fire, and Willingham the only possible arsonist.

      In this monograph, I discuss the various theories regarding the cause of the Willingham fire. Unlike my predecessors, I dare to suggest a specific cause of the fire other than arson. I argue that the fire was caused by two-year-old Amber playing with the open-flame space heater in her room. I conclude that Willingham was factually innocent of the crime for which he was executed.

      Chapter 2: The House

      The house that burned was a three-bedroom, one-bath, single-floor rental house. The front of the Willingham house is shown below as it appeared soon after the fire. The image is a view looking south.

      The floor plan of the Willingham house is shown below. South is at the top.

      The three bedrooms were originally the three rooms located along the right side of the image. The uppermost of those three bedrooms was, at the time of the fire, being used as a utility room. The children's bedroom, now located to the left of the image, was originally located at the bottom right of the image. The Willinghams switched the children's bedroom and the living room to provide more room for the children to sleep and play. From Willingham's police interview:

      Willingham: Well you see, the room where the babies was at, that used to be the living room, you know that's why it had a ceiling fan and everything in it. Well as they got a little older you know, they always played together and everything. To start with we had the twins, in this room, we had Amber in here and we was in here. Well as they got a little older, we thought well, we'll just change it around a little bit, give them one big room for them to be in, put all their toys in one room. So we moved the twins and Amber into here, you know we put a twin here and a twin, oh this is the front porch. Okay there was a twin here, a twin here and Amber was here.

      There was a child gate separating the children's bedroom from the hallway. The door to the children's bedroom had been removed.

      There was a Christmas tree in the living room.

      There was no stove in the house. The Willinghams instead used a two-burner hot plate, a microwave, and a FryDaddy electric deep fryer.

      There was no phone in the house.

      The Willinghams owned a washer and a dryer. Those appliances were presumably kept in the utility room.

      The floors were originally made from oak. At some

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