Year in Review: Cameron Todd Willingham
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Two decades ago in Corsicana, Texas, three young girls were killed in a fire. At the time, investigators ruled it arson. Many years later, the girls’ father, Cameron Todd Willingham, was executed for their deaths in 2004.
In January of 2011, the Texas Forensic Science Commission heard evidence from the nation’s leading fire expert, who said investigators in 1991 had a poor understanding of the science behind fires.
The forensic panel was commissioned by the state to review criminal cases where professional negligence or misconduct is a concern.
“No matter how many rules are changed or laws are passed, it’s not going to bring him back,” Willingham’s mother Eugenia Willingham said.
The panel is made up of scientists seeking forensic truth. In April, the commission’s chair, Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley, went before a state senate committee seeking confirmation after Gov. Perry appointed him to the position.
“Are you able to divorce your role as a prosecutor, in your county, from your role as chair of this commission to look at the forensic science?� State Sen. Rodney Ellis asked Bradley this year. “Or do you think you’re so unique that you wouldn’t have a conflict or you couldn’t raise the same issues about yourself? After all, you are John Bradley, God’s gift to us.”
Bradley lost his bid to head the forensic commission. Some state senators believed the prosecutor with a tough-on-crime reputation couldn’t serve the panel in an unbiased fashion. Bradley had even called Willingham a “guilty monster� publicly.
“I was simply responding to advocacy groups that were attempting to portray a case in an incorrect light,� Bradley said. “The commission does not evaluate guilt or innocence, the commission looks at forensic science.”
In July, the forensic panel’s authority to investigate older cases received a major setback. The state attorney general’s office wrote an opinion stating the panel could not examine, at-length, cases older than 2005. Willingham had been executed in 2004.
“We were baffled that this commission is now questioning their jurisdiction of a case that they have been investigating actively for five years,” Willingham’s cousin, Patricia Willingham Cox said.
In October, the board released a final report making 17 recommendations to modernize arson investigations.
The board also directed the state’s fire marshal to review at least 700 arson cases statewide.