In Case You Missed This... 'Trial by Fire' (The Cameron Todd Willingham Case/Execution)

[WillyT]

Governor Perry... I'm lookin at you!

Trial by Fire
Did Texas execute an innocent man?
by David Grann - TheNewYorker
SEPTEMBER 7, 2009


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.

<snip>

The fire moved quickly through the house, a one-story wood-frame structure in a working-class neighborhood of Corsicana, in northeast Texas. Flames spread along the walls, bursting through doorways, blistering paint and tiles and furniture. Smoke pressed against the ceiling, then banked downward, seeping into each room and through crevices in the windows, staining the morning sky.

Buffie Barbee, who was eleven years old and lived two houses down, was playing in her back yard when she smelled the smoke. She ran inside and told her mother, Diane, and they hurried up the street; that’s when they saw the smoldering house and Cameron Todd Willingham standing on the front porch, wearing only a pair of jeans, his chest blackened with soot, his hair and eyelids singed. He was screaming, “My babies are burning up!” His children—Karmon and Kameron, who were one-year-old twin girls, and two-year-old Amber—were trapped inside.

Willingham told the Barbees to call the Fire Department, and while Diane raced down the street to get help he found a stick and broke the children’s bedroom window. Fire lashed through the hole. He broke another window; flames burst through it, too, and he retreated into the yard, kneeling in front of the house. A neighbor later told police that Willingham intermittently cried, “My babies!” then fell silent, as if he had “blocked the fire out of his mind.”

Diane Barbee, returning to the scene, could feel intense heat radiating off the house. Moments later, the five windows of the children’s room exploded and flames “blew out,” as Barbee put it. Within minutes, the first firemen had arrived, and Willingham approached them, shouting that his children were in their bedroom, where the flames were thickest. A fireman sent word over his radio for rescue teams to “step on it.”

<snip>

Much More: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann?currentPage=all

:kick:

[RedEarth]

1. Glad you posted this...just saw this mentioned on Chris Mathews show

Gov Good Hair needs to be grilled on this.

[WillyT]

3. You Are Quite Welcome !!!

:hi:

[hedgehog]

11. "Because Willingham was known as a “baby killer,” he was a target of attacks.

Something for the people in favor of retribution by other prisoners should keep in mind.

[smokey nj]

7. He should be questioned about this specific case at every debate

[Kennah]

2. I want to commend this article to everyone

It's really long, but really worth it.

[WillyT]

4. Thank You !!!

:hi:

[WillyT]

5. Kick !!!

:kick:

[smokey nj]

6. Everybody should read this!

Thanks for posting WillyT!

[WillyT]

8. Hey smokey !!!

How ya doin ???

:bounce:

:hi:

[smokey nj]

9. Hangin' in there, thanks!

I'm loving the threads you've been posting.

[xocet]

10. That is a good article to read. Here is a set of links to other articles that are relevant:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/xocet/176

[WillyT]

13. Thank You !!!

:hi:

[Hassin Bin Sober]

12. I believe the documentary on this is available on NetFlix streaming. I watched it a month or so ago.

He was innocent.

He was convicted because he "acted guilty." He was seen at a tavern.

I always say, if my mother died of suspicious causes, I would be a suspect because the way I "acted".... I didn't cry in public and I went out drinking at our Pride Fest the day before the funeral/wake after being holed up in my apartment for three days (balling my eyes out). My boyfriend, who claims I don't posses tear ducts, only heard me weep a little on the phone. Yeah, I bottle things up.

[PA Democrat]

14. Link to video of Nightline piece on Willingham's execution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-cMpKfDPHg

The prosecutor is now a judge.:puke: