Willingham capital case haunts Texas governor as state launches inquiry

The scene in Corsicana, Texas, on the morning of 23 December 1991, was one of pure horror. According to eyewitnesses, Cameron Willingham stood in front of his wood-framed home as it was engulfed in flames pleading for someone to call 911 and screaming: "My babies are burning up!"

When fire fighters arrived, they found him dressed only in trousers and with hair on his chest, eyelids and head singed. They had to handcuff him to a truck to prevent him from trying to break into the three-bedroom bungalow to rescue the infants. One officer received a black eye in the scuffling.

All three of his children - Amber aged two, and one-year-old twins Karmon and Kameron - died. When Willingham gave permission for authorities to search his home after the event he told them: "I'd just like to know why my babies were taken from me."

That desire set in train a series of events that were to lead, 13 years later, to his own death at the hands of the state of Texas. Local fire investigators inspected the charred house to determine the cause of the blaze, and ended up concluding that Willingham, an unemployed car mechanic, had started it with lighter fuel in a deliberate act of arson.

He was convicted of homicide in 1992, at the end of a two-day trial in which only one defence witness was presented, and sentenced to death...