Defrosting Cold Cases

The district attorney of Navarro County sought the recusal of state District Judge Charlie Baird in a high-profile court of inquiry that was set to start today to determine whether Cameron Todd Willingham was wrongfully executed by the state of Texas for the deaths of his three daughters. The motion raised the possibility that the two-day hearing [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Arson Detection, Autopsy, Cameron Todd Willingham, Capital Punishment, Crime Scene, Cruelty, Death Row, Evidence, Faulty Evidence, Forensics, Identification, Investigations Division, Miscarriage of Justice, Police, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Texas, Victim, Witnesses, Wrongful Convictions

New Hampshire’s Sullivan County Superior Court Judge Marguerite Wageling heard arguments on David McLeod’s bail request last Sept. 7, 2010. She issued a ruling last Friday, writing that the state met the requirements for keeping McLeod in jail, but at the same time, she also ordered a second hearing. The state was required to show that the proof [...]

Tags: Arson Detection, Autopsy, Crime Scene, Evidence, Forensics, Hina Family Murders, Identification, Investigations Division, New Hampshire, Police, Unsolved Homicide, Victim

The inquiry into the Willingham case will be held in his courtroom on Oct. 6-7, but Judge Baird said that it could be extended if necessary.  Supporters of Cameron Todd Willingham hailed the Austin district judge’s decision last Monday to open a two-day court of inquiry next month. He will determine whether Willingham was wrongfully convicted and [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Arson Detection, Autopsy, Cameron Todd Willingham, Capital Punishment, Crime Labs, Crime Scene, Death Row, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Faulty Evidence, Forensics, Identification, Investigations Division, Miscarriage of Justice, Police, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Texas, Victim, Wrongful Convictions

Lawyers for Cameron Todd Willingham, executed for the 1991 arson murder of his three young daughters in Corsicana, today petitioned a judge in Travis County to consider whether Willingham was wrongly convicted. The lawsuit was filed by lawyers for Willingham’s relatives this afternoon with state District Judge Charlie Baird, who last year issued the state’s [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Arson Detection, Autopsy, Cameron Todd Willingham, Capital Punishment, Crime Labs, Crime Scene, Death Row, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Faulty Evidence, Forensics, Identification, Investigations Division, Miscarriage of Justice, Police, Prisons, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Texas, Victim, Witnesses, Wrongful Convictions

On December 23, 1991, a fire broke out in one room of the Willingham home, in Texas. Willingham’s then-wife and mother of his children, was not home. Their three daughters were and lost their lives. Willingham himself was home, tried to save his children, but was forced back by the intensity of the fire. He [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Arson Detection, Autopsy, Cameron Todd Willingham, Capital Punishment, Crime Labs, Crime Scene, Cruelty, Death Row, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Faulty Evidence, Forensics, Identification, Investigations Division, Miscarriage of Justice, Police, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Texas, Victim, Witnesses, Wrongful Convictions

The Texas Forensic Science Commission rebelled last Friday against its head commissioner John Bradley, by refusing to accept his draft report clearing arson investigators of misconduct or negligence in the 1991 fatal fire where flawed science was used to determine the blaze was intentionally set.  The fire we are talking about is of course, the one [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Arson Detection, Autopsy, Capital Punishment, Crime Labs, Crime Scene, Cruelty, Death Row, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Faulty Evidence, Forensics, Identification, Investigations Division, Miscarriage of Justice, Police, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Texas, Victim, Wrongful Convictions

Flawed arson science was used in the Willingham case that landed a father on death row. Reviews of his case showed exactly where the mistakes were made and why. Despite that, the state of Texas executed Cameron Todd Willingham. Will the state of Pennsylvania make the same mistake? Daniel Dougherty was found guilty of deliberately igniting fires [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Arson Detection, Capital Punishment, Crime Labs, Crime Scene, Cruelty, Death Row, DNA, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Faulty Evidence, Forensics, Investigations Division, John Lentini, Miscarriage of Justice, Pennsylvania, Texas, Victim, Wrongful Convictions

A Texas state board said last Friday that arson investigators in the Willingham case used flawed science but were not negligent in an investigation that led to a controversial 2004 execution. The panel also said that investigators did not commit misconduct. Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004, 13 years after a fire killed his [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Arson Detection, Autopsy, Cameron Todd Willingham, Capital Punishment, Crime Labs, Crime Scene, Cruelty, Death Row, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Faulty Evidence, Forensics, Identification, Investigations Division, Miscarriage of Justice, Police, Prisons, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Texas, Victim, Wrongful Convictions

Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004 for a fire that killed his three daughters. Prosecutors argued that Willingham deliberately set the 1991 blaze — but three reviews of the evidence by outside experts have found the fire should not have been ruled arson. The last of those reports was ordered by the Texas Forensic [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Arson Detection, Autopsy, Capital Punishment, Crime Labs, Crime Scene, Cruelty, Death Row, DNA, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Faulty Evidence, FBI, Forensics, Identification, Investigations Division, Miscarriage of Justice, Police, Prisons, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Texas, Victim, Wrongful Convictions

Christopher Cosgrove, Lapointe’s public defender during the criminal trial, and Henry Theodore Vogt, who sought a new trial for Lapointe in the late 1990s, testified during the latest hearing seeking a new trial for Lapointe. Paul Casteleiro, Lapointe’s current lawyer, focused on what Cosgrove and Vogt didn’t do when they handled the case in court. [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Arson Detection, Autopsy, Crime Labs, Crime Scene, DNA, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Forensics, Identification, Investigations Division, Miscarriage of Justice, Police, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Rape kits, Richard A. Lapointe, Unsolved Homicide, Victim, Wrongful Convictions