In 1991, a tragic fire burned down a house in Corsicana, Texas, and killed three children. Cameron Todd Willingham, the father of the kids, was quickly found guilty in the aftermath and was executed for the crime in 2004. His death was one of the most controversial US death penalty cases in history. In the years leading up to his execution, and even after, evidence has been mounting that addresses a pressing question: was Cameron Todd Willingham really guilty?
There is plenty of evidence that points toward Willingham being innocent. From weird witness testimonies to a jailhouse snitch who got a secret deal, there are many factors that make Willingham's guilt questionable. In the minds of many, all of the unearthed evidence over the years shows that Texas killed an innocent man for what may very well have been an accident. Even Cameron Todd Willingham's last words proclaimed his innocence, and he's certainly not the first person to be potentially falsely accused. Read on below to discover the disturbing facts that make Willingham's guilt questionable.
On December 23, 1991, a house in Texas burned to the ground. Inside were three children: one-year-old twins named Karmon and Kameron, and Amber, a 2 year old. Fire investigators determined that the fire was caused by arson and that Willingham used an accelerant to start the blaze. At the trial, the prosecutor asserted that Willingham wanted to get rid of his children as motive for the crime. For his part, the father said that either he was set up or that the accelerant used in the fire was spilled by his 2-year-old after the fire started.
Willingham received his sentence in 1993: a sentence of death. He refused to plead guilty, which would have spared him from the death penalty. He tried several times to appeal his sentence, but he was denied in each attempt. When he was executed in 2004, his final words were:
"The only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent man convicted of a crime I did not commit. I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do. From God's dust I came and to dust I will return so the Earth shall become my throne. I gotta go, Road Dog."
Conflicting Testimonies About His Actions During The Horrific Fire
The first piece of conflicting evidence came from the testimonies of witnesses. Some eyewitnesses report that Willingham tried to save his children and was covered by soot. He supposedly burned off his eyebrows when flames prevented him from going back into his house to save his three daughters. However, according to witnesses brought forward by the State of Texas during his trial, Willingham sat in his front yard and watched the fire ravage the house, doing little to rescue his family.
A specific example of unsettlingly inaccurate testimony was discovered by Elizabeth Gilbert in 1999. Gilbert met Cameron Todd Willingham while he was in prison, awaiting his execution. He made an impression on her and soon, she was reviewing his court records. Right away, she noted a key witness's testimony contradicted itself. Barbee had told investigators that she never saw Willingham try to save his children, but she was absent calling the fire department. In fact, her own daughter said Willingham broke a window on the porch to try to get into the house.
Testimonies Changed Over Time, Yet They Were Still Taken Into Consideration
Photo: Navarro County Sheriff's Department
Over the course of the case, people began to change their testimonies about Willingham. At first, people were sympathetic to Willingham until it was later revealed that he was a suspect in a triple homicide case. Slowly, testimonies became more vicious with time.
Father Monaghan, a police chaplain who responded to the scene, initially told police that Willingham seemed emotionally shattered by the events of December 23, 1991. However, after Willingham was named a suspect, he revised his statement and thought that Willingham was putting on an act and believed that he must have something to do with the fire because of it.
Prosecutors Came Up With A Dubious Motive
Motive is a key part of any murder trial, yet when prosecutors tried to establish one for why Cameron Todd Willingham would kill his children, there was no obvious reason. Rather than admit that, they implied that he was an evil satanist because of rock band posters that he had - bands like Led Zeppelin and Iron Maiden. This wobbly reason is how the state of Texas justified putting a man to death. As his prison pen pal Elizabeth Gilbert told PBS, "They never established a motive. So then their motive shifted to Todd just being an evil person."
Fallacious Psychiatric Testimony Was Given
During the trial, prosecutors built the case that Willingham was a sociopath on the testimony of two so-called "experts." One, Tim Gregory, was a family therapist who was a hunting buddy of the assistant district attorney. He testified that the heavy metal band posters with skulls on it showed that Willingham was an unhinged mad man.
James P. Grigson was the second mental health expert - a "forensic psychiatrist." He testified that Willingham was a "extremely severe sociopath." Within three years of the trial, he was actually disqualified from the American Psychiatric Association for making diagnoses without even examining his patients! It was with these two ridiculously unreliable testimonies that the prosecutor attacked Willingham - and won.
A Made-Up Confession Is Revealed
Prior to the trial, Cameron Todd Willingham insisted that he was innocent and never wavered from his story that the fire was an accident. Despite that, prosecutors claim he admitted to fellow inmate at the time, Johnny Webb, that he started the fire. Webb was a troubled young man facing charges for robbery.
11 years after Willingham's execution, Johnny Webb made a startling admission in 2015. He told the Marshall Project, an organization that works to free people who are falsely convicted, that prosecutor John Jackson threatened to give him a life sentence for a crime if he did not provide false testimony against Willingham. Webb also said that he was later granted parole for his statement and given $1,000 by a local businessman at the request of Jackson. Far from an open-and-shut case, the prosecution actively sought a false statement to put an innocent man to death and found the perfect source for their scheme in Johnny Webb.
