#129 | Posted by BobP
The guy in Texas never admitted anything, the ex-wives brother said he made some comment about taking away the kids sometime before the fire.
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The Houston Chronicle say's different
Ex-relative: Executed inmate confessed to murders
CORSICANA, Texas (AP) -- A former brother-in-law of a man executed in 2004 for killing his three children says the death row inmate had confessed to his ex-wife that he set the fire that killed their daughters.
The statement from Ronnie Kuykendall is included in two affidavits released this week by the city of Corsicana in response to media requests amid suggestions that Cameron Todd Willingham may have been innocent.
Willingham was executed on Feb. 17, 2004, after being convicted of capital murder for the 1991 deaths of the children, 2-year-old Amber and 1-year-old twins Karmon and Kameron. Prosecutors said he set fire to the family's Corsicana home while the children were inside.
Forensic scientists have called into question arson evidence used to convict Willingham, who maintained his innocence until his death. The prosecutor who argued the case still believes Willingham is guilty but acknowledges it would have been hard to win a death sentence without the arson finding.
One of the affidavits is based on a statement Kuykendall gave to Kirby Hill, then an investigator with the district attorney's office in Navarro County.
Kuykendall said his sister Stacy, Willingham's former wife, called her family together on Feb. 8, 2004, to tell them about a visit with her ex-husband, the Corsicana Daily Sun reported.
"Stacy asked all of us to come into the living room, at this time she started crying and told us about her visit with Willingham," Ronnie Kuykendall said in the affidavit.
"She stated that after visiting with him for about one hour and 45 minutes he told her that he had set the fire because he knew that she was going to leave him in January (1992) like she had said and that she was going to divorce him and he figured if he did this she would stay with him and she could get her tubes untied and that they could start another family and that he wanted her to write the board a letter because he did not want to die," according to Ronnie Kuykendall.
Stacy Kuykendall has declined to talk to the media since her ex-husband's execution.
The second affidavit is from a neighbor who this month gave a statement about what he saw on the morning of the December 1991 fire.
Tony Ayala told Corsicana police Detective Seth Fuller on Oct. 6 that he saw Willingham packing his vehicle and moving it out of the carport as smoke poured out of the house.
Ayala told Fuller that he tried to tell police in 1991 what he saw, but he was rebuffed.
