Trial by Fire - 16438 Words

[pic] Trial by Fire Did Texas execute an innocent man? by David Grann September 7, 2009 [pic] Cameron Todd Willingham in his cell on death row, in 1994. He insisted upon his innocence in the deaths of his children and refused an offer to plead guilty in return for a life sentence. Photograph by Ken Light. Related Links Audio: Grann on the Texas execution that may change the death penalty debate. Video: David Grann discusses the flaws of the Cameron Todd Willingham investigation. Ask the Author: Live chat with Grann Wednesday, September 2 at 3 P.M. E.T. The fire moved quickly through the house, a one-story wood-frame structure in a working-class neighborhood of Corsicana, in northeast Texas. Flames†¦show more content†¦According to the medical examiner, they, too, died from smoke inhalation. News of the tragedy, which took place on December 23, 1991, spread through Corsicana. A small city fifty-five miles northeast of Waco, it had once been the center of Texas’s first oil boom, but many of the wells had since dried up, and more than a quarter of the city’s twenty thousand inhabitants had fallen into poverty. Several stores along the main street were shuttered, giving the place the feel of an abandoned outpost. Willingham and his wife, who was twenty-two years old, had virtually no money. Stacy worked in her brother’s bar, called Some Other Place, and Willingham, an unemployed auto mechanic, had been caring for the kids. The community took up a collection to help the Willinghams pay for funeral arrangements. Fire investigators, meanwhile, tried to determine the cause of the blaze. (Willingham gave authorities permission to search the house: â€Å"I know we might not ever know all the answers, but I’d just like to know why my babies were taken from me.†) Douglas Fogg, who was then the assistant fire chief in Corsicana, conducted the initial inspection. He was tall, with a crew cut, and his voice was raspy from years of inhaling smoke from fires and cigarettes. He had grown up in Corsicana and, after graduating from high school, in 1963, he had joined the Navy, serving as a medic in Vietnam, where he was wounded on four occasions.Show MoreRelatedTrial by Fire16445 Words   |  66 Pages[pic] Trial by Fire Did Texas execute an innocent man? by David Grann September 7, 2009 [pic] Cameron Todd Willingham in his cell on death row, in 1994. He insisted upon his innocence in the deaths of his children and refused an offer to plead guilty in return for a life sentence. Photograph by Ken Light. Related Links Audio: Grann on the Texas execution that may change the death penalty debate. Video: David Grann discusses the flaws of the Cameron Todd Willingham investigationRead MoreTrial By Fire, By David Grann2184 Words   |  9 Pagest commit? How can you prove your innocence if you’re found guilty? Unfortunately Cameron Todd Willingham fell victim to this irreversible verdict. According to David Grann in his 2009 article, Trial by Fire, in The New Yorker magazine, Willingham was executed in Texas in 2004 for allegedly setting a fire to his home in hopes to murder his three young daughters 13 years prior. From arrest to conviction, he had always declared his innocence, and the arson investigation used to convict Willingham wasRead MoreTrial By Fire : The Forging Of Modern Physics3319 Words   |  14 PagesTrial By Fire: The Forging of Modern Physics (DRAFT EDITION) Most often, great minds are few and far between. It is an unusual circumstance for a collection of brilliant thinkers to exist at the same time, and even more strange for them to collaborate or clash. Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz are a spectacular demonstration of this phenomenon. 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The owner of the cabin, Henry Xavier Kennedy was convicted of Arson as he obtained an insurance policy for $40K on the cabin five days prior to this fire and police found evidence that the construction business owned by Mr. Kennedy was losing money, and Mr. Kennedys alibi was insufficient toRead MoreEssay on What Really Happened in the Boston Massacre?915 Words   |  4 Pages This chapter provided information from the trial of Captain Thomas Preston. The chapter asked the question, â€Å"What really happened in the Boston Massacre†. Chapter four focused on the overall event of the Massacre and trying to determine if Captain Preston had given the order to fire at Boston citizens. The chapter provides background information and evidence from Preston’s trial to leave the reader answering the question the chapter presents. A lthough, after looking through all the witnesses’ testimonies