From the Star-Telegram...
'I died 12 years ago'
By Michael Graczyk
The Associated Press
HUNTSVILLE - When firefighters arrived at the burning five-bedroom house on Corsicana's south side, the man who lived there was outside.
Neighbors said they saw Cameron Willingham outdoors even before the blaze engulfed the place, according to testimony at Willingham's trial.
"He was engaged in pushing his car out of the way so it wouldn't be scorched by the flames," John Jackson, the prosecutor in the subsequent criminal case, recalled.
Inside, Willingham's three young children _ 2-year-old Amber, and 1-year-old twins, Karmon Diane and Kameron Marie _ were dying. It was two days before Christmas 1991.
Willingham was charged with setting the blaze that killed the three youngsters, was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death.
His execution is set for Tuesday night.
"In my opinion, Willingham was an utterly sociopathic individual," says Jackson, the former Navarro County district attorney and now a state district judge. "He had a lifestyle that really didn't include care and nurturing of children. And, in my opinion, the children were just an impediment to his lifestyle."
Willingham, now 36, insisted in a recent interview on Death Row that he was not responsible for his daughters' deaths.
"I was the only person at home and that was their way of thinking," he said of the charges against him. The resulting trial was "a joke," he said.
"Any man who can look at me in the eye and say the justice system is not a farce is a liar. All they're going to do is kill an innocent man for something he didn't do. The most distressing thing is the state of Texas will kill an innocent man and doesn't care they're making a mistake."
Evidence at his trial showed an accelerant, believed to be charcoal lighter fluid, was used to ignite the floors, a front threshold to the house and on a concrete porch. A fire marshal testified the placement of the accelerant was designed to impede any rescue efforts by firefighters.
Willingham suggested a lantern lamp dumped fluid when a shelf collapsed inside the house and caught fire or his oldest daughter, who was "fascinated with everything," accidentally set off the blaze.
"Either that or someone came in with the intent to kill me and the children," he said from prison. "The arson investigator was a liar."
"He really just wanted to get rid of them," says Pat Batchelor, who was Navarro County district attorney at the time. "He had a burn on his arm from charcoal lighter fluid."
Willingham, a native of Ardmore, Okla., said his wife went out shopping and left him with the children. He was asleep late in the morning when the 2-year-old woke him with her cry for him. He saw smoke, jumped out of bed and told her to get out of the house, he said. Willingham said he tried to get to the twins' room, couldn't get past the flames and ran to get help. His house had no phone.
"The only way for me to get back into the house was to jump back into the flames," he said. "I wouldn't do that."
Trial testimony showed he expressed no grief over the loss of the children. Neighbors said he "hollered about his car" and a firefighter testified how Willingham was upset over the loss of a dart board.
"I died 12 years ago," Willingham said from death row. "At 11:51 a.m., Dec. 23, 1991. That's when I died."
Willingham's wife initially supported him and testified on his behalf at his 1992 trial. But Stacy Kuykendall told the Corsicana Daily Sun earlier this month that after reviewing case and meeting with her former husband in prison recently, she doesn't buy his version of the events that day.
"It was hard for me to sit in front of him," she said. "He basically took my life away from me. He took my kids away from me."
Willingham, who would be the seventh Texas inmate to receive lethal injection this year and the third in seven days, had a history of violence and a record of felony and misdemeanor convictions both as an adult and juvenile. Evidence at his trial showed he was abusive to his family and once beat his pregnant wife with a telephone to try to force a miscarriage.
The U.S. Supreme Court in November refused to review his case. The Texas attorney general's office was unaware of any appeals pending. A clemency request was rejected Friday on a 15-0 vote by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.
Thanks for those posts. Another one bites the dust. He was BAD ! ...
So they took away his phone, but left the children in his care.
These poor kids are in the presence of their Heavenly Father now, and He isn't going to let this animal near them. I wonder why their mother did?