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Burned by junk science
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At one time, “science” declared that the world was flat, and if sailors strayed too far, they would fall off the edge of the earth. Fortunately Christopher Columbus and a few other brave souls proved this to be false. During the Salem witch trials, anyone accused of odd behavior could be tried as a witch and hanged. (Contrary to popular belief, all those that were executed for witchcraft in Massachusetts were hanged, with the exception of one person who was stoned to death.
Death by being burned at the stake for witchcraft was the execution method used in Europe for those found guilty) (Blumberg, 2007). In the early 19th century, criminologists began using phrenology to determine whether someone had the propensity to commit a crime. This was done by examining the shape, bumps and protrusions on the skull of the accused. If certain areas protruded more than others, of if there were unusual bumps, then the belief was that the person had a propensity for criminal behavior and was usually found guilty of committing the crime of which they were accused (09Oc).
Looking back over time from the perspective of modern day CSI techniques, these practices seem absurd and outlandish. We shake our heads and ask ourselves how anyone could believe such nonsense and we think to ourselves how thankful we are to live in modern times with reliable methods of crime detection. If that is truly the case, then how is it that Texas is about to become the first state to openly admit that they executed an innocent person? What makes this case so important is that the conviction was based on so-called scientific methods of fire investigation.
These techniques have now been called into question and proven to be false. Sadly, the legal community is very slow to accept that evidence they have relied upon for decades is now being proven to be completely wrong. The prosecutor’s offices and district attorney’s offices hang on to those convictions like a dog hangs onto a bone. Rather than see that justices is actually done (which I believe is the core of their job description) they will turn a blind eye to anything that calls into question what they believe happened. I heard a defense attorney say recently that if you go to a scene expecting it to be a homicide, then that’s all your going to see when you look at the evidence. And that is true of any scene. If you walk into it with a bias and your mind already made up, then there is a great likelihood that any evidence found will be interpreted to fit your theory.
This article is the first in a series of articles that will examine scientific evidence and how what was once believed to be absolute truths have now been proven to be false by the scientific community, and how prosecutors and police officers still rely on faulty science to get convictions. Scary? You bet, because it could happen to any one of us.
Camron “Todd” Wilingham was not a perfect man. He was a high school drop out that had an arrest record for DUI, shoplifting, and stealing a bicycle. He wasn’t a great husband. He drank too much, cheated on his wife, and was sometimes abusive to her. But after becoming a father, something changed in him. He was settling down and becoming a man.
By all accounts he adored his three children; 2 year old Amber and one year old twin daughters Karmon and Kameron. So why would this father of three suddenly decide to set his own home on fire so that he could kill his beloved children? If you believe the State’s theory, it was because he was a cold-blooded psychopath that just “snapped.” This assessment was based on the opinion of two psychologists that hadn’t even interviewed Todd or met with him at all. In fact one of these so-called doctors was later expelled from the American Psychiatric Association for, lo and behold, violating ethical standards by making diagnosis on patients he hadn’t evaluated.
The State further used the fact that he had a skull tattoo and had several music posters in his house that depicted skulls which according to the State’s “experts” showed an inclination towards death and violence. All this despite that fact that his former probation officer never saw him exhibit any signs of violence or bizarre behavior. Then there’s the findings of the arson investigators. These experts completely contradicted what Todd says happened that morning. He said he was awakened by his daughter Amber screaming, “Daddy, daddy”.
He woke up to find his house engulfed in fire and smoke. He ran barefoot through the house yelling for Amber to get out. When he got outside, his neighbors saw him trying to break windows to get back inside the house to save his children. The first responders on the scene described him as hysterical and he had to be restrained and hand cuffed for his own protection because he kept trying to get back into the house. All three of his daughters perished in the fire. His wife had been out doing some last minute Christmas shopping when the tragedy happened so she was neither a victim nor a witness to these tragic events. Todd and his wife believed a space heater in the twins’ room is how the fire started. They had had problems with Amber playing and putting things too close to the heater in the past.
However, when the arson investigators entered the home to try and pinpoint what caused the fire, they found deep charring along the base of the walls in the hallway leading to the bedroom that the twins shared. Because gases become buoyant when heated, flames ordinarily burn upward. But the fire investigators, 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. Fogg examined a piece of glass from one of the broken windows. It contained a spiderweb-like pattern—what fire investigators call “crazed glass.” They believe it's a key indicator that a fire had burned “fast and hot,” which can only occurr if it's fueled by a liquid accelerant, causing the glass to fracture. The men looked again at what appeared to be a distinct burn pattern through the house: it went from the the twins' bedroom into the corridor, then turned to the right and went out the front door. Even the wood under the door’s aluminum threshold was charred. On the concrete floor of the porch, just outside the front door, Vasquez and Fogg noticed something they felt was unusual; brown stains, which, they claim were consistent with the use of an accelerant. The men then scanned the walls for soot marks that resembled a “V.” When an object catches on fire, it creates such a pattern, as heat and smoke radiate outward; the bottom of the “V” can therefore point to where a fire began. In the Willingham house, there was a distinct “V” in the main corridor. Examining it and other burn patterns, the arson investigators identified three places where fire had originated: in the hallway, in the children’s bedroom, and at the front door. They later testified that multiple origins pointed to one conclusion: the fire was “intentionally set by human hands.” They believed and testified that someone had poured liquid accelerant throughout the children’s room, under their beds, and then poured some more along the hallway and out the front door, creating a “fire barrier” that prevented anyone from escaping. They claimed that there were 20 indicators of arson present on Todd’s home. Prosecutors offered Todd a deal; plea guilty to murder and he could avoid the death penalty. His court appointed attorneys believed he was guilty and urged him to accept the plea. Todd was horrified at the offer. He refused to plea to something he didn’t do, especially to admitting that he killed his children. So the case went to trial and Todd was convicted and sentenced to death based on the evidence presented by the arson investigators and by evidence presented by a jail house snitch who claimed that Todd had randomly confessed to him while sitting in county jail awaiting trial. Never mind that it made no sense at all for Todd to confess something like that to someone he didn’t even know. Never mind the fact that this informant had a history of mental illness and post traumatic stress disorder. Valid or not, it boosted the State’s case so therefore they used this testimony. Remember, it’s not about the truth, it’s about winning in court.
Twelve years went by and Todd went through the usual appeals process that most all death row inmates go through. All of his appeals were denied. He was scheduled to be executed on February 17, 2004. A month before he was scheduled to be executed, an acclaimed scientist by the name of Dr. Gerald Hurst received Todd’s file. Dr. Hurst is arguably one of the top scientists in his field. He has had a colorful history of working for American defense companies on bombs, rockets, deadly toxins nonnuclear devises, etc. He has an extensive knowledge of fires and explosive and how they work. After reviewing Todd’s file, he was appalled at what he found. He was able to show that the 20 points of arson evidence cited by the State’s experts was actually 100% false. Their claim that there had to have been accelerants because the fire was so hot is utter nonsense according to Dr. Hurst. By conducting experiments on houses that have been condemned and are due to be torn down, scientists have discovered that the temperature of a fire has nothing to do with whether or not an accelerant was used. Their temperatures are virtually the same whether an accelerant was used or not. As for the mysterious brown stains which the arson investigators said was proof that an accelerant was used and that it hadn’t had time to soak into the concrete is again refuted by Dr. Hurst. He has personally done tests where he has poured various accelerants on a concrete floor and started a fire. None of them left brown stains. The brown stains are actually the result of debris and dirt left from charred material that mixed with the water of the fire hoses. The crazed glass that the arson experts said pointed to yet more evidence of an accelerant has been debunked. Fire fighters in CA saw all kinds of evidence of crazed glass when they were battling brush fires that had destroyed dozens of homes. None of these homes were set on fire by the use of accelerants. What they believed, and what Dr. Hurst believes based on his own experiments is that the crazed glass is caused from hot glass being rapidly cooled by water. Dr. Hurst then turned his attention to the State’s claim of “pour marks” and puddling. This is explained by flash over, a phenomenon where radiant heat causes a fire in a room to become a room on fire. In a test that was done on a condemned house, the fire department set the house on fire and when it was done, they were amazed to see these pour marks and areas that looked like there were puddles on the floor. This was all due to what is called post flash over, which is the fire’s search for a new source of oxygen. In Todd's case, this post flash over happened as he ran out the front door. The fire followed the new source of oxygen which was created as he opened the front door. These marks on the floor are no different than marks left by accelerants. The only way to tell the difference is to actually take the pieces of floor and have them tested in a laboratory for evidence of an accelerant. The only area that tested positive for this in Todd’s home was by the front door. And even this was easily explained by the charcoal grill and a bottle of lighter fluid which was on the porch near the front door prior to the fire starting. Then there was the issue of the V shaped patterns that again, the State’s experts said conclusively proved that the fire wasn’t an accident. Yet in that same house that the fire department burned and discovered the pour patterns when there was no accelerant used, they also discovered charring along the base of the walls and doorways, and burning under furniture. There was also a V-shaped pattern by the living-room doorway which was far away from there they had started the fire on a couch. They now believe that during post-flashover these patterns can occur repeatedly, as various objects in the building ignite. Dr. Hurst concluded that there was no evidence that the house fire was caused in any way other than how Todd said it did. He hurriedly wrote his report in the hopes that it would at least grant a stay so that the evidence could be re-evaluated. The State of Texas wasn’t interested in the truth or in re-evaluating the evidence. They didn’t care that they might possibly be putting an innocent man to death. Would it really have been a big deal to have granted a stay and had the evidence seriously evaluated? Apparently in Texas it is. Cameron Todd Willingham was executed by lethal injection on February 17, 2004. As details of this appalling case came to light, Texas put together a commission to review Todd’s case among others. One of the fire scientists that the commission hired to review this case concluded in his report 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” (Gann, 2009).
As a leader on the modern world, the United States needs to overhaul the entire criminal justice system starting with the mind set of prosecutors, forensic evidence and expert opinions. Some of these experts are relying on and training new experts on techniques that are over 30 years old despite the fact that newer scientific evidence refutes the old beliefs. Prosecutors have a responsibility to prosecute and convict guilty people. But somehow this has gotten distorted and there’s a belief that no matter how much the evidence contradicts their theory of guilt, they will sail full steam ahead and prosecute anyway. As long as there’s a chance that they will get that new notch on their “guilty” belt, why let a little thing like an innocent person going to prison, or being executed stand in their way.
For more info:
- http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/jackson/5pts/museum/phreno.html
- A Brief History of the Salem With Trials: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/10769816.html
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