Another Case of Failed Forensics?

The Way Arson Evidence is Interpreted Has Evolved

Apr 29, 2008

Once again, inaccurate findings were the result of human error, and this time it led to a death sentence for an innocent man.

Alleged Arsonist Earnest Willis was found guilty of the arson deaths of two women. He spent 17 years on death row, and came within two days of being executed for a crime he did not commit.

Could it be that Forensic Science is not all that it’s said to be? Or, could it possibly be the result of the improper processing and interpretation of evidence?

At the time of the initial investigation, arson investigators relied on a type of forensic evidence called “pour patterns.” They believed that these pour patterns, or stains on the floor, which led from one end of a house to the other, had originated near a couch that Willis was said to have been sleeping on. They theorized that the pour patterns were caused by the use of an accelerant.

Investigators believed that Willis, if sleeping on the couch or being present in the area of the couch, would not escape a fire of the intense heat that the use of accelerants would cause, unless he was the one who used the accelerants to ignite the fire.

Since Willis was the only person who managed to escape the fire uninjured, he was labeled the prime suspect in the crime. Willis was later convicted of the crime and sent to death row where he remained for several years.

The case was reopened and investigated by a new District Attorney, who at the time of Willis’ incarceration, was still in college. The new DA found that in today’s arson investigations, pour pattern evidence is obsolete, and that the stains on the floor, originally thought to be pour patterns, were now found to be the results of what is commonly called “flashover.”

Narrator of MSNBC TV’s, “When Forensics Fail,” said that when flashover occurs, fire “rolls over and downward,” (towards the floor), “creating an intense heat far greater than that produced by accelerants.”

According to Shelly Whitehead, Staff Reporter, for The Cincinnati Post wrote on August 1, 2001, “Flashover – That moment in the most intense fires when everything ignites simultaneously is among the most deadly situation that firefighters encounter, and, unfortunately also one of the toughest to train for.”

The DA’s investigation concluded that the fire was accidental, and that the flashover actually created the extreme heat that produced the alleged evidence formerly thought to be pour patterns.

In this case that very evidence first used to convict Ernest Willis, exonerated him in the end, overturning his death sentence. Willis was later awarded over $400,000.00 in damages for 17 years of time served.

While forensics can be an exact and irrefutable science used to identify criminal offenders, as well as victims of crimes, without experts carefully processing and examining the evidence, it can result in destroyed lives of innocent people and their families, as in the case of Ricky Jackson

The copyright of the article Another Case of Failed Forensics? in Crime Scene Processing is owned by Peter Moser. Permission to republish Another Case of Failed Forensics? in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.