Michael Ledford's Petition for Absolute Pardon: Chapter 3

DRAFT 

(Current as of 23 Aug 2012)

3. SEQUENCE OF EVENTS: AN OVERVIEW

In Apartment 17-A, Michael and Elise Ledford were having trouble with the table lamp plugged into the outlet behind their couch. The lamp would not turn on reliably by use of its own switch. In this sense, the lamp was much like the other electrical items that seemingly malfunctioned in other apartments suffering from overheating outlets.

Michael and Elise therefore came to rely on the wall switch to control the lamp, That wall switch was located right by the front door. That wall switch controlled the outlet that later showed evidence of burning, the outlet in which the insurance investigator found (but did not photograph or preserve) burned wiring.

It was odd that the lamp switch seemed not to work. The lamp had been given to Michael and Elise by Elise's parents just two months earlier. Her parents had owned and used the lamp for many years. The parents had never had a problem with the lamp. Not until the lamp was plugged into the outlet in the Ledford apartment did it seemingly begin to fail.

We learn of that from the trial testimony of Elise's father, who appeared as a witness for the Commonwealth.

Ervin: Let me show you photograph number 1, Reverend Arner. 

Arner: Yes, sir. 

Ervin: And there's a lamp here on a table near the door. Where did -- did that lamp come from? 

Arner: That was a lamp that we gave them about July of '99. 

Ervin: And what was the working condition of that lamp? 

Arner: It was excellent. 

Ervin: Had there ever been any malfunctions? 

Arner: Not -- none. No. 

Ervin: Any sparks or anything caused by the lamp? 

Arner: Never -- never blew a light bulb. We had used it all the time that we had it; which it was brand new until then.

Darlene Keiper also knew about the recent problem with the lamp. She shared the apartment with Michael and Elise. She was the person who actually moved the couch from the wall, plugged the lamp into the outlet, and moved the couch back against the wall. Only then, when the previously trouble-free lamp was plugged into the outlet at Highland Hills Apartments, did the lamp begin to misbehave.

Martha and Ronda Reames both knew about the problem with the lamp. On the very day of the fire, while attending a birthday party for one-year-old Zachary Ledford, they each noticed that the lamp did not turn on and off properly.

Nobody, however, noticed that the outlet was overheating. The outlet was located behind the couch: out of site, out of touch, and out of mind.

Later that night, when Zachary and Elise were both early to bed, Michael left to run errands. He planned to put gas in the car. He planned to stop by the firehouse where he volunteered as a firefighter. As he left his apartment, he decided to leave a light on for Darlene Keiper. She was scheduled to arrive home soon after he left. He flipped the wall switch to the ON position as he left the apartment.

It was a simple courtesy. It was a completely innocent act. It had deadly consequence.

Within minutes, Zachary Ledford would die of smoke inhalation. Elise Ledford would be seriously burned during her unsuccessful effort to escape.

The Commonwealth's fire investigator would make only a cursory examination of the fire scene. In his formal report, he would declare that the electrical system could not be ruled out as a cause of the fire.

In that same report, the Commonwealth's investigator would declare that he could not exclude an accidental or natural cause of the fire. He would declare the cause to be "Undetermined."

Instead of making a thorough and scientific investigation of the fire, the state investigator would relinquish the investigation to agents of the complex's insurance carrier, one of them an investigator and one of them an adjuster.

The insurance investigator discovered, but literally covered up, evidence of an electrical fire. The outlet behind the living sofa showed distinctive smoke patterns emanating from within. When the insurance investigator removed the outlet, he discovered burned wiring inside. The insurance investigator did not photograph the burned wiring, nor did he secure them as evidence. Instead, he replace the outlet and its faceplate as if he had found nothing of interest.

Within weeks, the insurance investigator and/or the insurance adjuster would convince the police that the fire was caused by arson rather than by an electrical problem. Their ultimate client, [Name of Insurance Company Withheld], would be spared a lawsuit for the wrongful death of a one-year-old child, a personal injury lawsuit for the burning of a young mother, and the cost of major electrical repairs to every apartment in the Highland Hills Apartments complex.

Within a month, when subjected to techniques later proven to produce false confessions, Michael Ledford would come to believe that he must have started the fire. He would claim he started the fire by removing one of two candles from one of two candleholders, and by then tossing the candle into the seat of the living room chair. Believing he must be mentally ill for being unable to previously recall the act, he would ask for psychiatric treatment. Believing he must unwittingly be a threat to others, he would ask also to be kept away from other people.

Michael Ledford's confession, however, would be utterly contradicted and absolutely falsified by the evidence from the fire scene. The fire did not start in the chair as Michael claimed in his confession. Nor was any residual candle wax found, though the wax could not have been entirely consumed by the fire. Nor were any candleholders found, though the candleholders certainly could not have been consumed by the fire.

Not only did Michael's confession include candles and candleholders that never were, his confession included precise details of a specific cigarette lighter never found, "a white one with the Dallas Cowboys." Michael confessed that he lit the candles with that specific lighter, the "white one with the Dallas Cowboys", and left the lighter "on the table that had the plants on it." The lighter could not have been consumed by the fire, since even the plants on the table were not consumed, but the lighter was never found

The lighter could not be found for the same reason candle wax and candleholders could not be found. No such items were ever involved in the Ledford fire. Michael's clear recollection of those items was but a confabulation, a false memory resulting from the persistent suggestions of his interrogators.

In addition to taking note of the many false claims central to Michael's confession, the investigators should have also taken note of a burned circuit breaker, and of smoke patterns emanating from the circuit breaker panel. The investigators should have taken note also of the burned wiring inside the living room electrical outlet, and of the smoke discharged from within that outlet.

The investigators should have carefully created a timeline of the events leading up to the fire. Had they done so, they would have realized that ignition occurred well after Michael Ledford left the apartment.

Had the state investigator conducted a thorough and scientific investigation of the Ledford fire, rather than relinquishing the investigation to agents of the insurance company, Michael Ledford would never have been charged. We would not be addressing this issue still today.

Because the state investigator relinquished the investigation to agents of an insurance company having a vested interest in the outcome of the investigation, Michael Ledford would stand trail for capital murder.

During the trial, the jury would hear only a select portion of Michael's confession. The jury would not hear the hours Michael spent denying he started the fire. The jury would not hear his interrogators try to convince him the fire started on the floor, as they knew it had, rather than in the chair, as they knew it had not. The jury would not hear his interrogators suggest dozens of bizarre motives, including sexual failure and a desire to be a fire chief. The jury would not see those portions of the tape where his interrogators told him he had failed a polygraph test when he had not. The jurors would not see those portions of the tape where his interrogators lied to him about the physical evidence.

Instead, the jury would hear only the moment Michael Ledford suddenly and quietly succumbed to the will of his interrogators.

The jury would certainly not hear of experiments yet to take place that would prove the interrogation techniques applied to Michael Ledford frequently lead to false confessions.

Equally troubling, the jury would not see the compelling evidence of an electrical fire. That evidence had been concealed by the insurance investigator, depriving both the Commonwealth and Michael Ledford critical evidence of his innocence.

The jury would find Michael Ledford guilty of arson and first-degree murder. They would spare his life. The judge would sentence him to fifty years in prison.

For the next decade, Michael's mother would attempt to free her son. In 2010, she would join forces with an advocate for the wrongfully convicted. After a two-year investigation, this petition now explains how the Virginia justice system was deceived by an insurance company into pursuing and securing the conviction of Michael Ledford.

Michael Ledford's Petition for Absolute Pardon: Chapter 2

DRAFT 

(Current as of 20 Aug 2012)

2. ELECTRICAL PROBLEMS AT THE HIGHLAND HILLS APARTMENTS

Residents of Highland Hills Apartments were having problems with their plug-in appliances. The more fortunate among those residents were those who realized their outlets were overheating. They had their outlets replaced.

The Ledfords were not among the fortunate. The overheating outlet in their apartment was located behind the living room sofa. They therefore did not notice that the outlet was becoming dangerously hot. They did not realize that a circuit breaker would fail to protect them. Soon one of them would be dead, one would be seriously burned, and another other would be on trial for his life.

In Apartment 16-C, above and to the left of the Ledford apartment, the resident had a sewing machine motor that dragged and a nightlight that refused to work. She noticed that the outlet was "very warm." She flipped the circuit breaker to the OFF position and notified the management. The management had the outlet replaced.

A second woman in the complex noticed the outlet in her son's room was hot to the touch. She notified the management. The management had the outlet replaced.

In one of the apartments above the Ledford apartment, a kitchen outlet had been replaced, perhaps by the resident. The outlet is brown. No other outlet revealed in more than 100 photos of the building was any color other than white / ivory / almond.

In each case, replacing the outlet resolved the superficial problem initially attributed to the appliances. The more serious problem, however, remained unresolved. The electrical systems at Highland Hills Apartments were deteriorating and becoming unsafe. Given that overheating outlets result in more than 5000 fires per year, the multiple instances of overheating outlets should have prompted an inspection of all outlets in all units. Instead, the underlying problems were simply ignored until residents became so concerned that they either complained or attempted to correct the problem themselves.

The electrical problems at Highland Hills Apartments were not limited to wall outlets. Photographs taken at the Ledford fire scene reveal the hardwired fire alarm had been installed without an electrical box. This is a clear and egregious code violation. Instead of being secured to an electrical box which was in turn secured to rigid structure, the hardwired smoke alarm was carelessly attached using just two plastic anchors loosely embedded in the gypsum ceiling panel.

Of even greater concern than the missing electrical box is what appears to be a severed electrical cable visible in the space above the ceiling. Given the ragged nature of that exposed cable, and given the equally ragged edge of the hole in that area, it seems as if the electrical cable may have been severed when someone carelessly cut a crude hole in the ceiling to install the smoke detector.

The missing electrical box, the crudely cut hole, and the apparently severed cable suggest that the box was installed during a retrofit program, one that focused on minimizing cost rather than insuring safety.

What is not visible in the photograph is the means by which the smoke detector is connected to the apartment's electrical system. If the smoke detector was merely spliced into a circuit already passing through the overhead, and if that splice was made while working through the small cutout, and if that splice was of similar quality to the rest of the smoke detector installation, then that splice posed another serious fire hazard to the apartment.

Of greater concern than even the overheating outlets (and the crudely installed smoke detector and the exposed wiring in the overhead) is an apparently makeshift repair to one of a circuit breakers photographed after the fire inside the electrical service panel that was supposed to protect the Ledford apartment from electrical hazards.

The circuit breaker reveals startling evidence of an egregiously unsafe repair. Rather than replacing the breaker after a presumed earlier problem, maintenance personnel simply glued plastic strips over the top of it, or so it seems.

A sooted spider web connects the plastic strip and its oozing adhesive. The spider web is evidence that the improperly repaired breaker had been deteriorating for some time. The spider web is evidence also that a cheap, improper repair eventually cost an infant child his life, the parents their son, and the father his freedom.

So noticeable were the problems at Highland Hills Apartments that the residents of Apartment 20C expressed their concern to the police that the fire in the Ledford apartment was ignited by the electrical system. As it turns out, they were correct.

Michael Ledford's Petition for Absolute Pardon: Chapter 1

DRAFT 

(Current as of 8 Aug 12)

1. THE APARTMENT

Michael, Elise, and one-year-old Zachary Ledford lived in Apartment 17A of the Highland Hills Apartments complex in Stuarts Draft, Virginia. An overhead view of the complex is presented below. Building 17 is circled in red. North is towards the top of the image, as per convention.

As shown in the photo below, the Ledford apartment was located on the first floor, to the left as you enter Building 17. The orientation of the building will prove to be of some significance. North is to the right in the image below; south is to the left. West is into the image, and east is behind the reader. The front of the building is the east side.

Though the fire did not spread beyond the apartment living room, there was no need to actually enter the apartment to realize it had burned. The smoke streaks around the door testify to a serious fire within.

Similar streaks around an electrical outlet in the living room testify to a fire within the outlet, behind the faceplate.

Similar streaks beneath the circuit breaker panel in the master bedroom testify to a fire within the panel. When the panel door is opened, the heavy smoke deposition within is obvious.

Furthermore, two side-by-side images of the circuit breaker box, shown below, provide irrefutable evidence that either or both of the insurance investigators substantially altered and/or removed a circuit breaker.

1.1 The Floor Plan

The locations of the wall outlet and the circuit breaker panel are shown in the floor plan below.

The area around the entry door (at the upper right corner of the floor plan) is critical to this story. That area was captured in a photograph taken shortly before the fire, while the Ledford family and friends were celebrating Zachary's first birthday. 

<< PHOTO NOT SHOWN>>

That is Zachary in the photograph. He is sitting on the lap of a family friend.

The upholstered chair and ottoman are obvious in the photograph. The quilt rack is visible behind the chair. The rack is covered with quilts and Afghans. The quilt rack and the chair would, soon after this picture was taken, provide the primary fuel load for the fire.

The end table, which is integral to the couch, is visible at the left. On top of the end table is a lamp. That lamp may have provided the ignition source for the fire.

The lamp is plugged into an electrical outlet located behind the couch, beyond the left edge of the photograph. The wall switch visible near the entry door controls the outlet. You have already seen the electrical outlet in a photograph presented earlier in this petition. You have seen that smoke was being ejected from behind its faceplate.

One of the guests at the birthday party, the daughter of the woman sitting in the chair, experienced trouble while attempting to turn on the lamp. She had to try repeatedly, using both the lamp and the wall switches, before she was successful. The woman in the chair witnessed the trouble.

When Michael Ledford left the apartment that night, shortly before the fire broke out, he flipped the wall switch to the ON position.

Arson Science Questioned in Two Convictions

The title to this post is less flamboyant than usual. That's because it's not mine. It belongs to the The Richmond Times-Dispatch, the newspaper of record for Richmond and much of Virginia. Written by Frank Green, the article discusses wrongful arson convictions in general and two possible cases in particular: those of Davey James Reedy and Michael Ledford. Since I represent Michael Ledford as an advocate for the wrongfully convicted, I may have brought his case to the attention of Reporter Green.

Please read the article in its totality. I offer only a few brief and non-sequential excerpts below.

Two men who claim they are innocent of arsons that killed their children are hoping scientific advancements in fire investigation in recent decades will clear their names. ... Prosecutors remain convinced the two are guilty as found by juries beyond reasonable doubt. ... 

"When you can prove some other dude done it you're in much better shape. With fires, it's not 'some other dude done it,' it's 'nobody done it,' and that's very difficult to prove once you're convicted," said John J. Lentini, a fire investigation expert and consultant. ..

Ledford, 36, is in his 12th year behind bars for the Oct. 10, 1999, fire that started a few hours after the family celebrated his son's first birthday. The fire was contained to an area surrounding an upholstered chair in the living room of their two-bedroom apartment in Augusta County. It broke out after Ledford left the apartment to run errands and to stop by the fire station where he was a volunteer firefighter. His son, Zachary, was killed by smoke inhalation and his wife, Elise, was severely burned but lived. ... 

In the Roanoke arson case, shortly after 6 a.m. on Aug. 10, 1987, a fire broke out in the kitchen of Reedy's home occupied by Reedy, who was asleep on a couch, and his 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son. Reedy said he discovered the fire and attempted to save his children, but was overcome by heat and smoke and jumped through a window to escape. He was hospitalized for smoke inhalation, burns and lacerations. His children died from smoke inhalation.

For the remainder of this post, the information regarding Davey Reedy comes from the article. The information regarding Michael Ledford comes my two-year involvement and knowledge of the case, a portion of which was reflected in the article.

Reedy was convicted because of well-intended arson investigators who applied now-discredited rules of thumb, and because of sloppy lab work that somehow detected gasoline residue where none may have existed. Reedy was sentenced to two life terms. Ledford was convicted because of a lackadaisical investigation by the Commonwealth investigator who effectively relinquished the investigation to a less-than-impartial insurance company. Though the Commonwealth sought his death, Ledford was sentenced to 50 years in prison.

Reedy was paroled in 2009 after serving more than 20 years. "The Virginia Parole Board, (which) paroles nobody, let him out," said Reedy's attorney.

That claim seems to be accurate, at least according to an article by CorrectionOne.com. The title alone tells much of the story. "At 6%, Virginia's parole rate is among the nation's lowest: Virginia Parole Board denies 94% of requests."

The possibility of parole is even more bleak for Michael Ledford. In fact, it is non-existent. In 1994, parole was abolished by the Virginia Legislature. The abolition was not retroactive so Reedy (convicted in 1987) was eligible and Ledford (convicted in 1999) is not.

Though paroled, Reedy is seeking a pardon from Governor Robert McDonnell to clear his name and restore his rights. More than a decade ago, then state delegate McDonnell expressed concern about Reedy's conviction. From the Times-Dispatch article:

In 1999, while a state delegate representing Virginia Beach, McDonnell wrote then-Gov. Jim Gilmore about Reedy's case telling him there was "a substantial amount of evidence to warrant further investigation."

Those of us who advocate for Michael Ledford's release are encouraged by Governor McDonnell's concern that justice be pursued even post-conviction. We have prepared what we believe to be a comprehensive and compelling petition for absolute pardon, and we will be submitting it soon to the governor. I have posted the executive summary of that petition here. The entire petition is 160 pages, or thereabouts. I will be posting it on a chapter-by-chapter basis over the course of the next month or so.

I invite you to follow the story as I post the chapters so that you can better understand how an innocent person can be prosecuted by the State and convicted by a jury of his peers.

Michael Ledford's Petition for Absolute Pardon: Executive Summary

DRAFT 

August 6, 2012

The Honorable Robert F. McDonnell

Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia

In the Matter of Michael J. Ledford, Petitioner

Petition for an Absolute Pardon

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Michael Ledford is serving the twelfth year of a fifty-year sentence for arson and the first-degree murder of his one-year-old son. He pleaded not guilty and has maintained his innocence ever since. He has expended all his appeals, including his one appeal based on actual innocence. A recent independent re-examination of the evidence in his case has determined that the fire resulted not from arson, but from a seriously overheated electrical circuit. Since Michael Ledford's only remaining avenue for relief is executive clemency, he asks that you carefully consider this petition for absolute pardon.

On October 10, 1999, Petitioner Michael Ledford left his apartment to run errands. His wife and his one-year-old son were asleep in separate bedrooms at the rear of the apartment. As he departed, Michael turned on a nearby table lamp using the wall switch near the entry door. That simple, innocent act triggered an electrical fire within the deteriorating electrical system.

Other residents of the Highland Hills Apartments had recently been having problems with their electrical systems. In an adjacent building, a sewing machine motor dragged and a nightlight refused to work. The tenant noticed that the electrical outlet was "very warm." The tenant notified the management. The management had the outlet replaced.

In another apartment, another outlet had become hot to the touch. The tenant notified the management. The management had the outlet replaced.

In one of the two apartments directly above the Ledford apartment, the tenant experienced problems with a kitchen outlet. Being young and self-confident, he replaced the outlet himself. 

At least one of the outlets in the Ledford apartment had been deteriorating for a while. That outlet, however, was located behind the sofa, and no one noticed that it was overheating. The Ledford family and friends did notice that a table lamp had started acting up. Its switch seemingly worked only intermittently. Everyone learned to use the wall switch to control the lamp. It was that wall switch Michael flipped to the ON position as he left to run his errands.

A wall outlet is shown below. It is the outlet that powered the bothersome table lamp. It is the outlet controlled by the wall switch near the door.

There is no doubt that the wiring inside that outlet had burned. The smoke streaks radiating from the perimeter of the outlet and its faceplate provide evidence of a fire within. Even the insurance investigator, an adverse party to Michael's defense and the only person to actually examine the wiring, conceded that it had burned. The insurance investigator, however, assured the jury that the wiring had been a victim of the fire rather than its cause. The insurance investigator assured them that the wiring inside burned only when the fire outside swept over the outlet.

While there is no doubt that the wiring inside the outlet was burned, it could only have burned because it overheated itself from within. The only possible alternative, that it burned as fire swept past, is impossible. No fire did sweep past that outlet. The area behind the couch was spared by the fire, as shown in the image below. 

The composite image shows the relative positions of the couch and the wall outlet. The wall outlet would have, of course, been facing the back of the couch, rather than facing away from it as shown. It is the relative positions of the couch and outlet that are of importance.

The composite image shows clearly that the front of the couch was seriously burned and charred. The image shows with even greater clarity that the area of the couch nearest to the electrical outlet was unburned. There was no fire behind the couch. Fire did not sweep across the face of the outlet. The burned wiring within the outlet did not result from an external heat source.

Though the composite image is compelling by itself, one does not need to rely on it alone. The same conclusion is unavoidable by looking just at the faceplate. It is not melted. It is covered with soot from the fire within, but it is not in any way melted. An external heat source powerful enough to burn the internal wiring would certainly have melted the plastic faceplate.

The burned wiring within the outlet was hardly the only evidence of an overheated electrical circuit. Both the lamp cord and the extension cord lost their prongs when they were unplugged by the investigators. Neither plug showed any substantial damage from external heating. Instead they heated from within sufficiently that they softened, their connections failed, and their prongs separated as the plugs were pulled free.

The light bulb in the table lamp exploded. This is exceedingly rare. Light bulbs are surprisingly durable, designed as they are to withstand the several thousand-degree temperature of their white-hot filaments. Even when heated by a raging fire, light bulbs merely soften and sometimes bulge towards the heat source. Light bulbs can burst if cooled too quickly when firefighters hit them with water, but the fire in the Ledford living room self-extinguished. Not a drop of water was used to extinguish it. Nor did anyone bump or bang the bulb, at least not with sufficient authority to knock the lamp over; the investigators' photos show the lamp still standing in its original position.

Normally, one would expect an overheating circuit to be interrupted by a circuit breaker. The evidence of an overheated, unprotected circuit unfortunately extends all the way to the circuit breaker box. Smoke streaks around the service panel and heavy sooting inside indicate that a fire burned or smoldered within that breaker box.

One breaker actually showed a burn mark on its handle.

The same breaker shows startling evidence of an egregiously unsafe repair. Rather than replacing the breaker after a presumed earlier problem, maintenance personnel merely glued plastic strips over the top of it.

A sooted spider web connects the plastic strip and its oozing adhesive. The spider web is evidence that the improperly repaired breaker had been deteriorating for some time. The spider web is evidence also that a cheap, improper repair eventually cost an infant child his life and the father his freedom.

The crudely patched circuit breaker is not the only egregious code violation revealed by the investigators' photos. Shockingly, the smoke detector was installed without an electrical box. It was supported only by a couple of plastic anchors and (later) its wires, which also are burned.

Of even greater concern than the missing electrical box is what appears to be a severed electrical cable visible in the overhead. Given the ragged end of the exposed cable, and given the equally ragged edge of the hole, it seems as if the electrical cable may have been severed when someone carelessly cut the hole to install the smoke detector.

The missing electrical box, the crudely cut hole, and the apparently severed cable suggest that the box was installed during a retrofit program, one that focused on minimizing cost rather than insuring safety.

The evidence of an electrical fire inside the Ledford apartment is substantial and compelling. Michael was not convicted because the investigators found no evidence of an electrical fire. They found plenty. Nor was Michael convicted because the investigators found some evidence of arson. They found none, none whatsoever. Michael was convicted instead because he confessed.

Though Michael quickly recanted his confession, and though his confession shows the classic hallmarks of being false, Michael did confess. Juries find confessions compelling, even if the confession has been recanted, even if the confession stands in stark contrast to all evidence at the scene.

Juries simply do not understand that false confessions are common.

The Innocence Project explains that in approximately 25% of all DNA exonerations, the person exonerated had either confessed or provided an incriminating statement. Studies conducted since Michael's conviction show that most people, more than 50%, will falsely confess when subjected to interrogation techniques similar to those used on Michael Ledford.

Virginia Governors have a noble history of granting clemency when a person has been proven innocent and when no other relief is available. 

In 1989, Governor Gerald Baliles pardoned David Vasquez, though Vasquez had falsely confessed to the rape and murder of Carolyn Jean Hamm. Governor Baliles believed Vasquez to be innocent, so he set Vasquez free.

In 2000, Governor James Gilmore granted Earl Washington, Jr. an absolute pardon, though Washington had falsely confessed to the rape and murder of Rebecca Lynn Williams. Governor Gilmore believed Earl Washington was innocent, so he set Washington free.

In 2009, Governor Tim Kaine granted conditional pardons to three of the Norfolk Four, though they had each falsely confessed to the rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko. Governor Kaine suspected the three were likely innocent, so he set them free.

Because Michael Ledford was in no way responsible for the fire that took the life of his one-year-old son, and because he has no alternative avenue for relief, he prays that you will grant him an absolute pardon.

A Clarification

A couple of readers have commented about the penalty phase of Michael Wayne Hall's trial. That is a point worthy of discussion, but I'll leave it for those who comment and those who write elsewhere.

For clarification, my focus is on actual, factual guilt or innocence. I am primarily interested in whether the person committed or participated in the crime. This is different than legal guilt or innocence.

A person may be legally innocent though he comitted or participated in the crime. The jury may have found that the state failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, or that the defendant was legally insane at the time of the crime. I don't have a fundamental objection to either situation, though I would prefer that sane, factually guilty people pay for their crime and that insane people not pay for their insanity.

More disturbingly, at least to me, a person may be legally guilty though he neither committed nor participated in the crime. The jury may have concluded that the state proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt, though the defendant was factually innocent (as in the case of Byron Case) or though no crime in fact had occurred (as in the case of Michael Ledford.) These are the cases that motivate me, and threaten to consume me.

The Terminator, Crickets, Kevin Bacon, and Freedom

You are a critical link. The liberty of two young men depends on you reading this entire post.


The Terminator

When I held a more conventional job, one that actually pays, my colleagues would occasionally mention they had met someone noteworthy. It happened so often, I maintained a Claim-To-Fame list of such encounters. People then sought me out to tell me of their encounters.

One colleague played against Arnold Schwarzenegger in a tennis match. Arnold apparently played tennis pretty much as he acted: without much subtlety. My colleague won easily. ("Lub fordy. Don't return dis serve if you want to live.")

One colleague carried Mandy Patinkin's laundry to the cleaners. ("Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to martinize.")

One had urinated next to Bill Monbouquette. ("A finesse pitcher who relied on changing speeds and a superb control, Monbouquette was signed by the Boston Red Sox as an amateur free agent in 1955 ...") Apparently as a young man, this particular colleague had attended a Boston Red Sox game with his father, had availed himself of the restroom facilities, and was taking advantage of the urinal when the guy beside him decided it was an appropriate time for an introduction: "Hi. I'm Bill Monbouquette."

Still another colleague had an aunt who was a professor at some big-name university. The aunt  hosted frequent parties for the intelligentsia. My colleague claimed, that his aunt claimed, that at different times, five different (and apparently besotted) nobel prize winners knocked over her mail box as they backed out of her driveway.

I myself was on a commercial flight with Peter Graves. I sat somewhat further back in the airplane so we never had a chance to speak. However, we both experienced one of the most terrifying flights I've ever been on, the details of which are beyond this post. I'm serious about this claim to fame, and I'm not talking about the movie: "Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?"

In the unofficial parlance of the small world phenomenon, I claim to be only one degree of separation away from Peter Graves. Each of you can now claim to be only two degrees away. "I read this blog by some guy who thought he might die on an airplane with Peter Graves, so it's like we're almost friends."

The small world phenomenon was first discussed soon after Marconi invented the radio. Seemingly impressed by Marconi's work and its implications, Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy challenged his readers to find someone he could not be connected to by five or fewer people. Frigyes was apparently the first person ever to suggest than anyone on earth is no more than six degrees of separation away from anyone else on earth.

After more than a century of observation, experiment, and theoretical modelling, Frigyes seems to have come pretty darn close to the answer. Amazing.

Crickets

Duncan Watts is a bright and curious man. Currently he is a principal research scientist at Yahoo! Research. Previously, he pondered how crickets managed to synchronize their chirps over long distances. His research into synchronized crickets inspired him (along with Steven Strogatz) to develop the first network model of the small world phenomenon. They discovered that the small world phenomonenon is applicable not just to people who know people, but to brains, power grids, computer security schemes and a seemingly endless list of natural and man-made systems.

"I think I've been contacted by someone from just about every field outside of English literature. I've had letters from mathematicians, physicists, biochemists, neurophysiologists, epidemiologists, economists, sociologists; from people in marketing, information systems, civil engineering, and from a business enterprise that uses the concept of the small world for networking purposes on the Internet."

Think Facebook.

One of Watts' conclusions I find interesting is that randomness is critical to the small world phenomenon.  A perfectly ordered system is a horrifically ineffective means of spreading information. Add just a few random links, however, say one or two percent of the total, and the system becomes very efficient.

To understand this, assume everyone on earth is ordered in a gigantic square. (When we had only 4.9 billion people on earth, that would be a square with 70,000 rows of 70,000 people.)  Assume you can communicate with people in no larger than a fifty person radius, and you want to contact Juan Luigi Chan, Jr. You know Juan Luigi is somewhere in the far corner of the square. The best you can do is yell to someone fifty people away in that direction, asking them to relay a message to Juan Luigi Chan, Jr. who is somewhere in the far corner. That person can then yell to someone else fifty people away and so on. It's going to take a while for your message to get there.

Assume people on average are half a grid away, on a diagonal somewhere. It would take (excuse me while I make use of the Pythagorean theorem) 990 links minimum to get close, then a few more to home in on Juan Luigi Chan, Jr.

Now assume you are also friends with 100 or so people scattered randomly around the huge grid, and you know exactly where each of those friends is, and you can call any one of them on your cell phone. You don't yell to your buddy fifty feet away. You call your friend who near the far corner of the humanity grid. "There's someone in your area named Juan Luigi Chan, Jr. I want to talk to him. I figure you don't know him, but check someone you think might, and see if that person knows him. Pass along my phone number and have Juan give me a call. Thanks, I owe you a solid."

Your phone will be ringing in no time, after no more than five intermediate phone calls.

Kevin Bacon

For some reason, Kevin Bacon has become the American name most associated with the small world phenomenon. For a long time, I've heard people talking about being fewer than six degrees of separation away from Kevin Bacon. In fact, Visa used the bit in a clever commercial.

Kevin Bacon is so closely tied to the small world phenomenon that when you are talking about your connection with him, you don't use the term "degrees of separation." You use the term "Bacon Number." If you are two degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon, your Bacon Number is 2.

In the original sense, connections to Kevin Bacon were allowed only via movie connections. Only actors or actresses could therefore have an official Bacon Number. That rule has since been substantially relaxed, as evidenced by the commercial. However, if you would like to see the small world phenomenon in action, try the brilliant and easy to use utility at The Oracle of Bacon.

According to the Oracle of Bacon, Arnold Schwarzenegger has a Bacon Number of only two. Arnold appeared with Todd Stashwick in the movie The Rundown (2003) and Todd appeared with Kevin in the movie The Air I Breathe (2007). 

And with that insight, I have come full circle, from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Kevin Bacon. It is now time to learn about how this relates to freedom.

Freedom

I estimate that there may be a quarter million people wrongfully incarcerated in this country. That's 10% of the 2.5 million people we currently have incarcerated.

Of that quarter million, there are two I am actively and persistently attempting to help free. Those two are Byron Case and Michael Ledford.

Bryon was wrongfully convicted of murder and armed criminal action. He is serving two life sentences without parole in Missouri. Byron has been through all his appeals, up to and including the U.S. Supreme Court. (They simply refused to hear his case.) Byron has left to him an appeal based on actual innocence and a plea for clemency.

Michael was wrongfully convicted of murder and arson. He is serving 50 years in Virginia, which has no parole for anyone. Michael has used (or has time defaulted on) all his appeals. All of them. He has left  to him only a plea for clemency.

To free a person wrongfully convicted of a serious crime, you must prove that person to be factually innocent beyond any reasonable doubt. It's not the law, it's a fact of life. It's nowhere good enough to argue that the person did not receive a fair trial, or that the prosecution withheld evidence, or that witnesses lied. None of that matters. When it comes to freeing the wrongfully convicted, you must produce proof of innocence.

In each of the two cases, I know what really happened. I know not because someone told me, but because I've lived immersed in the data for months and months and months. In each of the two cases, I can point to the evidence which will prove innocence. It will, however, do neither of them any good, because I am not an expert in the field at question. This too is a fact of life.

I need to find, somewhere out there in the vast sea of humanity, two experts who will be the key to freeing Byron Case and Michael Ledford.

And now you can see where I'm headed. I'm trying to find two people among the great sea of humanity. I don't know their names or where they live, but I can describe them to you, and you can ask around.

Each person is intelligent, highly-qualified, and generous. Each person would be personally offended that an innocent person would be imprisoned for life for a crime they did not commit. Each person would be willing and able to provide his or her expertise pro bono to correct a terrible wrong.

The first person has expertise regarding a little-used time-of-death indicator. More specifically, the first person can speak with expertise regarding how long a person has been dead if that person's corneas are not cloudy, though the person died with their eyes open. The person probably works in the medical field, possibly as a medical examiner, pathologist, eye surgeon, or ophthalmologist. That person might work in the field of corneal transplants.

The second person should be easier to find. That person has expertise regarding the interpretation of the evidence left behind by fires. More specifically, that person can determine from photos of circuit breakers, wall outlets, cords, and plugs whether a related fire was caused by an electrical problem.

Each of you reading this post is no less than one-sixth of the distance between Bryon Case and the person who might help free him.

Each of you is also no less than one-sixth of the distance between Michael Ledford and the person who might help free him.

I suspect none of you reading this post are either of the two people I seek. I suspect also there is but little chance you know either of the people I seek. I believe, however, that you know someone who might know someone who might know one of the two people who can help.

Please ask that person you know. Please ask them to forward a message from me to someone they know who might know the person I seek.

"I need your assistance. You are a critical link. The rest of a young man's life is at stake. Please write me at www.skepticaljuror.com."

Michael Ledford: Confession Falsified by Smoke and Mirror Images

For those of you just joining in this case, allow me to bring you up to speed quickly.

Overview

One month after an apartment fire took the life of his one-year-old son and seriously burned his wife, Michael Ledford signed a document stating:

Around 8:00 P.M. we put Zach to bed then Elise went to bed at 8:30 P.M. I told Elise that I was going to put gas in the car and put my name on the EVAC sheet at the firehouse then write the check for Pied Piper then go to bed. Before I left, I lit a candle and threw it in the chair. I never wanted to hurt my family. I was tired of trying to live up to Elise's parents' standards. I now wish I had took my mom's advice and moved back to Pennsylvania. I agree I need help, and willing to get -- and willing to get help. I just hope my family and friends and God can forgive me.

Michael recanted but to no avail. At trial, two fire investigators confirmed the arson. A jury convicted Michael Ledford of first-degree murder and arson of an occupied dwelling. A judge sentenced him to 45 years for the murder and 5 years for the arson. The sentences are to be served consecutively. There is no parole or early release in Virginia.

I am convinced Michael Ledford is innocent, and I intend to prove it. 

Confession Falsified by Thermodynamics

Michael's confession cannot be true. The fire scene photos show neither candle wax residue nor candle holders. Based on Michael's written confession and his more detailed video taped confession, there should have been both.

Confession Falsified By Space and Time

A detailed timeline analysis coupled with the most sophisticated fire simulation available today shows  that Michael was not at or near the apartment when the fire started. The fire started between 4 and 14 minutes after his departure.

Confession Falsified by Smoke

New content follows.

The electrical service panel was located in the master bedroom, well removed from the fire in the living room. The bedroom suffered light-to-moderate smoke damage. I present the service panel and the surrounding smoke damage below. I have cropped the picture to preserve (to the extent possible) the privacy of those people I hope to help.

Below, I provide a closeup of the same service panel, this time with the panel door closed. You can see that soot has settled along the upward facing surface above the door.

There are, however, streaks of soot projecting from the bottom of the panel door and faceplate, particularly at the lower right corner. These streaks are suggestive of smoke being expelled under pressure from within the panel.

It's time to look inside.

The soot inside the panel is considerably denser than outside the panel, though the panel door was presumably closed during the fire. Even if the door had not been closed, the more intense deposition of smoke inside the panel cannot be explained by a living room fire alone.

The police and insurance investigators should have pulled the panel faceplate. They should have examined the circuit breakers. They make no report that they did. Something burned behind the faceplate. Something burned with sufficient intensity to deposit the smoke you see above, and burned with sufficient intensity to eject smoke from the lower corners of the panel door.

Though Virginia Police Agent James Watson and insurance investigator Gary Toler profess to be experts in fire investigation, and though I make no such profession, I am adamant nonetheless that they should have examined and photographed each circuit breaker in detail.

The smoke inside the electrical service panel is evidence of an electrical fire at the Ledford residence. The smoke inside the electrical service panel was not caused by a candle thrown into a chair in the living room. The smoke in the service panel disproves Michael Ledford's confession.

Confession Falsified by Mirror Images

In the picture above, notice the text "CH 7BF" impressed on the back of the panel door. Though I have been working on this case for more than five months now, only recently have I made a serious effort to determine if that text is significant. I spent many hours prowling the internet researching that text in particular and circuit breakers in general. The text was a stone I did not want to leave unturned.

As it turns out, the first two letters of the text are of great significance. Here was the big discovery.

All circuit breakers do not trip to the center position. The following circuit breakers do not have a center position, and they trip to the "off" position: Cutler Hammer, Bryant and Murray.

It hit me that the CH stands for Cutler Hammer. I confirmed this by comparing images from the fire scene with images from Amazon. The panel from the Ledford apartment is on the left. A typical Cutler Hammer residential panel from Amazon is on the right.

 

The models are not identical, but the similarity of design is obvious. Most obvious are the vertical lines on the door bounding a raised region, possibly added for ventilation purposes. One noticeable difference is that the Ledford panel is missing its pull handle. I don't know if that is significant.

Most circuit breaker handles move only slightly (to a "middle" position) when they pop. For those breakers, you have to look carefully to distinguish which breaker just popped and needs to be reset. To reset it, you have to move it first to the fully "off" (fully open) position and only then can you move it back to the "on" (fully closed) position.

This understanding of the Ledford breaker manufacturer and operation confirms what I had suspected. All the circuit breakers on the left hand side of the panel (plus the bottom circuit breaker on the right hand side) popped sometime during the fire. They popped from their fully "on" position to their mirror image fully "off" position.  You will see that if you will look at the picture once again. I therefore provide the picture once again. Click on the image to see it enlarged and clear.

When the switches popped, the handles moved away from the center. Because these are Cutler Hammer breakers, the handles moved a relatively long distance, all the way to the fully "off" position. In doing so, new and noticeable portions of the breakers were exposed to the smoke. The breakers that popped during the fire had the newly exposed portions sooted by the smoke. Those which were manually thrown after the fire show the white region that was protected from the smoke during the fire. Those breakers stayed on during the fire.

To understand the significance of this, you need to understand how a circuit breaker works. I quote from the same reference as above.

A temperature sensitive bimetal strip ... bends and releases the spring mechanism at a calibrated temperature. Usually, the temperature of the bimetal strip is proportional to the amount of current passing through the circuit breaker. However, the bimetal strip will react and bend to any rise in temperature. The rise in temperature may be due to a loose wire connection, misalignment of the circuit breaker contacts, or the heat from a fire. 

In other words, a circuit breaker is designed to trip when it becomes hot, usually due to excess current flowing through it. Excess current flows when there is too little resistance in the circuit protected by the breaker. When a line shorts, when two wires touch without a lamp or a heater or a microwave in between, excess current flows through the circuit. This causes the bimetal strip in the circuit breaker to heat, bend, and thereby release a spring mechanism which pops the switch. In a Cutler Hammer circuit breaker, the switch movement is unequivocal.

A circuit breaker will also pop open if the bimetal switch is heated by any means other than excess current.  If one breaker in the panel overheats but fails to pop open as designed, the heat from that switch will begin to burn the surrounding material and will begin to heat the other breakers. If the faulty breaker generates sufficient heat, smoke will be expelled from the breaker box and the other breakers will begin to pop.

That's what happened in the Ledford apartment. The evidence you see in the photos is evidence of a short in a circuit elsewhere in the Ledford apartment. It is evidence also of a circuit breaker that failed to open as it heated up.

Now what?

I'm not done. Not by a long shot. I set out to find the origin of the fire. The breaker box in the master bedroom is not the origin of the fire in the living room. The breaker box in the master bedroom is but a glaring symptom of an electrical short elsewhere in the house.

I set out to find the short, and find how that short set fire to the living room. What I learned along the way has shaken me to my core.

Michael Ledford: Confession Falsified by Space and Time

For anyone attempting to understand a crime, or an alleged crime, a comprehensive and accurate timeline is a thing of beauty. Even our rapidly advancing technology does not allow a person to be in two different places at the same time. Even the most sophisticated forensic analysis cannot cause time to run backwards. Even the most rabid or obfuscatory closing arguments cannot erase the impact of evolving testimony or altered documents.

Useful as they are, however, comprehensive and accurate timelines can be challenging to construct. A flimsy timeline constructed of surmise and unsubstantiated claims is of considerably less value than a robust timeline constructed of irrefutable facts. Good luck building the robust version.

In this post, I'll attempt to present a timeline of events for the fire that occurred at Michael Ledford's apartment in Stuarts Draft, Virginia on the tenth of October, 1999. The fire resulted in the asphyxiation death of one-year-old Zachary Ledford (Michael's son), the severe burning of Elise Ledford (Michael's wife), and the fifty-year prison sentence in Virginia (a state with no parole) of which Michael Ledford has now served a decade.

Keep in mind as we work through the mundane events, dates, and time that we are actually attempting to determine whether Michael Ledford is indeed guilty of murdering his one-year-old son and seriously burning his wife, or whether he was wrongfully convicted of a horrific crime. While the tasks may seem mundane, the objective is, quite literally, truth and justice.

The Birthday Party

Most of the events of that day and that evening are undisputed. Michael and Elise Ledford held a small birthday party for their son Zachary who had been born one year and three days earlier. Guests included Elise's parents and two family friends.

According to Elise's testimony, after the guests left she cleaned up, gave Zachary a bath, and gave him a bottle. She put him in his crib (in his own room) sometime between 8:00 and 8:30 PM, after his hair had time to dry. Soon thereafter, she went to bed herself, since she had been up since 4:00 AM and since she was scheduled to be at work early the next day. She remembers nothing else until being roused from a medically sustained coma five weeks later.

According to Michael's testimony, he arose sometime between 8:00 and 8:30 AM. He tended and played with Zachary while Elise worked her morning shift. Elise returned home around 11:30 AM. The party broke up between 3:30 and 4:00 PM. Michael laid Zachary down for a later-than-usual nap while Elise spoke outside with her parents and the family friends.

Michael's mother, Pat, called from her home in Pennsylvania, as she usually did on Sunday afternoons. She asked about Zachary and the party. Michael assured her that Zachary liked the gift she had bought for him.

Once the guests had left, and the baby was napping, and the phone was quiet, Michael and Elise made love for what would be the last time.

Soon thereafter, Zachary awoke. Either he or Elise fed Zachary while the other finished cleaning up after the party. They both got down on the floor and played with their son.

Michael's Departure

Elise put Zachary to bed around 8:00 PM and got ready for bed herself. She asked Michael if he would put some gas in the car. He said he would and that he would stop just briefly at the fire department to sign his training log. Michael, as it turns out, was a firefighter for the Stuarts Draft Volunteer Fire Department.

Michael estimates that Elise went to bed sometime between 8:00 and 8:15 PM. He watched TV briefly, in the dark, for money was scarce and they were careful with their utilities. He left to complete his two errands sometime between 8:30 and 8:40 PM. Michael's neighbor (the one in the apartment across the entry way) reported hearing Michael leave (Michael's car has a distinctive loud noise) approximately 30 minutes before the fire trucks arrived. Since they arrived at 8:57 PM, Michael's neighbor estimated that Michael left around 8:27 PM. That is quite close to the earlier end of Michael's estimate.

As Michael was leaving, he turned off the television then flipped on the light switch near the entry door, as a courtesy for their boarder who would be arriving home soon.

It is at that moment Michael was leaving that the only substantive disagreement occurs. The entire case hinges on what Michael did or didn't do as he left that evening. According to his testimony, he did nothing other than flip the light switch to the on position and shut the door behind him. According to the State of Virginia, and according Michael's recanted confession, he took a long and slender candle from a pair that was burning on the end table, lit it with a cigarette lighter, and tossed the candle into the chair before leaving and shutting the door behind him.

The Gas Station

No one disputes that Michael then drove from 19 Highland Drive to Little's Exxon (now a Citgo) station on the corner of Stuarts Draft Highway (U.S. Highway 340) and Draft Avenue (State Route 608). Zachary's babysitter coincidentally drove past the gas station at approximately 8:35 PM and noticed the Ledford's burgundy/maroon Cavalier there. The car was distinctive due to its red rectangular-shaped light on the roof.

Given that Google gives a driving distance of 0.3 miles and a driving time of 2 minutes, the babysitter's time is consistent with Michael leaving near 8:30 PM. It is not consistent, however, with Michael leaving near 8:40 PM. The babysitter could, of course, have been off in her estimate.

Michael put $9 or $10 worth of gas in the car. In April of that year, gas prices in Virginia were around $1.03 per gallon for unleaded, according to my online search. Michael apparently pumped somewhat more than 9 gallons of gas into his car. He went inside to pay for it and spoke briefly with the cashier. I'm unaware of any effort by the police or the defense to interview the cashier, recover receipts, or view any security tape.

In any case, it would take a finite amount of time to pump and pay for the gasoline. The Skeptical Spouse and I each guessed it would take 5 minutes. I then recreated the transaction as best I could, using my vehicle and my local gas station. I started my stopwatch as I pulled into the gas station. I parked without delay at an available pump. I walked inside and prepaid without delay. I pumped 9.3 gallons of gas into the my car. The pump seemed to be pumping at a normal speed, neither noticeably faster nor slower than expected. I returned the pump handle, reentered the car, and left without delay. I stopped the stopwatch as I pulled out of the gas station. The time was 5 minutes and 2 seconds.

Assuming the babystitter's time of 8:35 was correct, and assuming my 5 minute transaction estimate is correct, Michael arrived at the station sometime between 8:30 and 8:35 PM. He left sometime between 8:35 and 8:40 PM.

The Fire Rescue Station

From the gas station, Michael drove along Draft Avenue either "to the Stuarts Draft Rescue or the Stuarts Draft Fire Department." The two buildings are across the street from one another, so it makes little difference from a timeline perspective which he went to, though I would like clarification. For now, I'll assume he went to the Stuarts Draft Rescue building, which is slightly closer and much easier to locate on Google. (Google whiffs when attempting to locate 118 Draft Avenue.)

Google estimates the distance to the rescue building to be 0.2 miles, and estimates the driving time as 54 seconds. We'll call that one minute. Assuming Michael left the gas station no later than 8:40, he arrived at the rescue building no later than 8:41. Given all the other assumptions already described, Michael arrived at the rescue building between 8:36 and 8:41 PM.

Tenants Discover the Fire

Slightly later, at approximately 8:45 PM, Deborah Moore and Jim Dorsey became aware of a fire in one of the Highland Hills apartments. They had just finished moving into a nearby unit.

"As we were getting ready to pack up the tarps and everything that we had used to bring everything down on a trailer ... I heard ... glass pop; a popping sound. And when I looked to the window, I saw flames kicking up from the bottom right side of the window; the large windows. ... I couldn't tell what was making the flames, but within seconds, the drapery went up and the whole window was engulfed in flames. ... For a few seconds, my boyfriend and myself stood on the sidewalk, just watching the window. And then we heard a woman scream inside. I instantly ran up the stairwell into the entryway; to the door; tried the handle; tried to open the door. The handle was cold; it wasn't hot. It was locked. I banged on the door and told her to open the door. My boyfriend was yelling to tell her to go to the back windows to get out. And so I continued banging on the door, telling her to go to the back. And then he yelled for me to get out of the entry hall, in case there was, you know, an explosion with gas or something. ... I thought I had heard a minimal whimper ... just ... a whine, or something like that. But I didn't hear anything else."

Jim Dorsey recalls seeing Michael leave 20 minutes (or less) prior to the time he noticed the fire. Since he noticed the fire around 8:45 PM, that places Michael's time of departure at 8:25 PM or later. Once again, an 8:30 departure seems reasonable. An 8:40 departure seems quite late, since that would have only been 5 minutes (not 20 minutes) before Jim Dorsey noticed the fire.

911

At 8:47 PM two people called 911. One of them was a neighbor. One of them was Elise Ledford. She wasn't able to say anything. The operator only heard her gasp, then the line went dead.

At 8:50 PM, a 911 operator called the Stuarts Draft Fire Department and informed them of a fire at the Highland Hills apartment complex.

Michael's Return

Michael had finished recording his training on a log inside the fire rescue building when tones activated on his pager. The pager indicated a possible structure fire at the Highland Hills apartments complex, the complex where he lived. Highland Hills is a large complex, though, and it did not occur to Michael that  it might be his apartment that was on fire.

"I thought, you know, I, I live up there. I didn't see anything when I left. Someone probably just panicked, probably burned something in the oven, so instead of waiting to ride in a fire truck, I just went up in my personal vehicle."

Michael did not endanger others as he returned to the complex. In fact, he stopped at the red light at the intersection near the gas station where he had just fueled his car. Google lists the distance back to the apartment complex as 0.5 miles. It lists the driving time as 4 minutes. I don't know how Google accounts for the variations that might be caused by red lights.

As he approached the apartment complex, Michael slowed and looked down one of the two long rows of apartments. He saw nothing. An excited woman, who turned about to be the aforementioned Deborah Moore, noticed the red light on the top of his car, flagged him down, and informed him that the fire was at the top of the hill in the next row of apartments. Michael drove directly up there, found he had been preceded by another volunteer firefighter (who lived in the complex), and realized only then to his horror that it was his apartment that was on fire.

He rushed to the back of the apartment to see if Elise had escaped or attempted to escape out a window. As a firefighter, Michael had been concerned about the single exit from the building; he had advised Elise that she could escape through the rear windows should a fire ever block the exit.

The rear windows were closed and darkened by smoke. The prosecution would attempt to cast doubt on Michael's story by questioning why he did not break the rear windows and attempt a rescue of his wife and son. Michael explained he did not do so because the windows were too high and because his training told him not to do so. He did not explain, nor did anyone else for the defense, that he was ill equipped to do so, would likely have succumbed quickly to the smoke and toxic gases, and would  have therefore been unlikely to succeed. Nor did anyone explain that had he attempted such a rescue, it is possible that Elise would have died along with Zachary. The fresh air would have stoked the fire which was in the process of self-extinguishing due to lack of oxygen. The fire training he received took into account all such factors.

Michael returned to the front of apartment where he had to be physically restrained by the properly-equipped firefighters just arriving. The first fire trucks arrived at 8:57 PM. Assuming Michael heard the tones at 8:50 and spent 4 minutes to return to the complex, that places Michael at the apartment 3 minutes before the first fire vehicle arrived. That seems consistent with the evidence and testimony.

Elise's Response to the Smoke Detector

Of particular interest to us is when the fired started relative to when Michael left the apartment. To make that determination, we will need some additional information which is thankfully available. Assuming Elise was awakened by the smoke alarm, we will need to know how long it takes for a smoke alarm to awaken sleeping occupants, and we will need to know how long the fire had burned before it triggered the smoke alarm.

I located online a number of studies investigating the effectiveness of high-pitched smoke alarms in waking occupants. The controlled studies did not involve actual fires. I can summarize the results pretty quickly.

Young children will not awaken to high-pitched alarms. They awaken most consistently to female voices. Some organizations have therefore recommended altering or supplementing the type of alarms emitted by smoke detectors.

People with hearing difficulties are obviously insensitive to smoke alarms. Seniors fall disproportionately into this category. This rather obvious finding has also led to recommendations for supplemented or altered alert sounds.

Sleep deprived college students sometimes fail to awake to high-pitched alarms.

All adults without hearing impairment awaken within 30 seconds when subjected to the high-pitched tone associated with smoke alarms.

I can provide the results of a small study based on a single, anecdotal event. When I was twenty-nine years old, the smoke detector in our house went off at 4 AM. I not only awoke instantly, I believed I had set a world's record from fully asleep to standing beside the bed searching for flames licking at the door. My time estimate for that sequence is 7 nanoseconds. I dismiss the possibility that I slept for 30 seconds and then awoke rapidly because my wife tied my 7 nanosecond record from sleeping to standing. It's statistically unlikely we slept for the identical 30 second, or 15 second, or 5 second interval before initiating our record-setting 7 nanosecond feat.

In our case, the alarm turned out to be a false. After checking the house for fire, I insured all gas sources were turned off and I popped all the circuit breakers. I removed the battery from the stupid fire alarm and returned to bed. There we joked and giggled nervously until it was time to get up.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the fire experts paid by Michael's defense team assumed that Elise awakened thirty seconds after the fire alarm sounded. I will disagree only slightly. I will assume that Elise awakened within thirty seconds of the alarm sounding, assuming it sounded at all.

The Smoke Detector's Response to the Fire

The Court allowed Michael's defense team to hire fire experts. The defense hired the Maryland firm Combustion Science and Engineering. CSE received a $15,000 fixed fee to research, report, and testify about the case. I offer the company's mission statement directly from their web site.

For more than twelve years, Combustion Science & Engineering, Inc. (CSE) has been dedicated to the study, advancement, and application of combustion and fire science. Combining a wealth of knowledge and experience, from the private to public sector, from academia to industry, CSE’s spirited partnership and dedicated team offers exceptional technical leadership, intelligent solutions in combustion and fire protection, and superior fire and explosion investigations.

Since the fire occurred 11 years ago, it seems CSE had not been in business for a long time before being called on to assist in the defense of Michael Ledford.

Steven Olenick (master of science in fire protection engineering) was the principal author of the company's report. Dr. Richard Roby (founder and principal of the company) testified at the trial. Together they prepared and reported on (among other matters) the speed with which the fire burned and spread. Using the best modeling technique available at the time, one developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, CSE estimated that fire started between 8:43 and 8:45 PM.

The jury was unimpressed by the testimony of hired experts, believed Michael when he confessed, didn't believe him when he testified, and voted him guilty.

CSE seemingly never lost interest in the case. In 2010, on their own dime, they prepared and published a paper entitled "Re-Visiting the Michael Ledford Fire Incident." In that paper they discussed the results of their re-evaluation of the Ledford fire using the latest fire modeling computer simulation technique. I have read the paper carefully, am familiar with finite element modeling (since we used it to model the aerodynamic behavior of aircraft) and I am dutifully impressed by their work. I include below a particularly relevant segment from their latest report, and include the corresponding image. Click on the image to enlarge.

In the model, the smoke alarm activated at approximately 75s. Adding in 30s to awaken to the alarm and 30s to respond, it is expected that Elise would be in the living at approximately 135s after the initiation of the fire. At 135s, the approximate time she would be expected to be in the living room under the confession scenario, the fire size is approximately 100 kW. This fire size would likely be perceived as small enough to approach and attempt to mitigate, but large enough that she would be unable to do so. Additionally, the smoke layer would be low enough to cause Elise distress, while remaining high enough so that the witnesses would be able to see her in the living room. A graphic showing the fire size as well as a graphic showing what the witnesses would see in the living room from a vantage point outside the residence at the time Elise would be expected to be present are presented below as Figure 8. The size of the fire and smoke layer in the model at the time Elise would be in the living room is in agreement with the witness accounts of the fire when they saw Elise through the window.

It is a terrific piece of work. If interested you can read the entire paper from Pat Ledford's website, Innocent in Prison. If you are satisfied that I am reporting accurately, you can simply accept that CSE estimated that smoke detector triggered 75 seconds after the fire began. They assumed that Elise arose 30 seconds later, and placed her in the living room, witnessed by Deborah Moore, 30 seconds after that. For reasons not made clear in their paper, CSE estimates Elise would not call 911 until more than 3 minutes after being witnessed in the living room. I find that time estimate to be surprisingly large and I respectfully disagree.

I assume CSE's 3 minute time delay results from their insight into how much smoke was generated and how much smoke one can breath before becoming unconscious. I note, however, that it is only an assumption that Elise passed out immediately after the 911 operator heard her gasp. The 911 operator in fact testified that the line went dead. I believe, based on the photo of the electrical service panel that I will reserve for a later post, that the line went dead because the circuit breaker popped. Elise's portable phone required continuous power to the docking station located in the kitchen.

Finally, The Fire Start Time

Instead of 3 minutes, I assume Elise called 911 soon after discovering the front door blocked by fire, that she called within 45 seconds of realizing she was trapped. That gives a total time of from the start of the fire to the 911 call of 3 minutes. That three minutes consists of 75 seconds for the fire to trigger the smoke alarm, 30 seconds for Elise to awake because of the alarm, 30 seconds to make her way from the bedroom to the living room, and 45 seconds to call 911 after realizing she was trapped. Each of the last three increments seems conservative.

Given that the 911 call is well documented as having taken place at 8:47 PM, and given that I believe the evidence indicates Elise called within 3 minutes of the start of the fire, I claim the fire started no earlier than 8:44 PM. Given that Michael left the apartment no later than 8:40 PM, and more likely left the apartment around 8:30 PM, I conclude (as did CSE before me) that Michael could not have started the fire.

More Testing Required

I recognize that someone convinced of Michael's guilt could reasonably argue that the fire smoldered for 4 or 14 minutes before spreading rapidly. I discussed this point briefly with CSE via email. They believe this to be unlikely, and they explain that their model takes ignition time into account. They do, however, acknowledge that others may not accept their modeling of this issue. To further address the issue of ignition time, Pat Ledford, fire investigator Brian Hattem, and I intend to conduct testing that will consist of repeatedly tossing candles into chair analogs, chair-like objects. We promise to be careful.

If the candles never set fire to the chair, then the testing will add to the argument that Michael's confession is falsified by space and time. If the candles set fire to the chair almost immediately, once again Michael's confession would be falsified.

Only if at least one of the tests resulted in an extended smoldering before a rapid fire spread would Michael's confession withstand the rigors of a detailed timeline analysis. That would not mean that Michael's confession was true, since it is already falsified by thermodynamics. It would mean, however, that the challenge before us is even harder than we had anticipated.