By Sharif Durhams
The Charlotte Observer
CONCORD, N.C. — The verdict in the Lisa Greene murder trial may come down to the crash course 12 men and women have gotten in arson investigation.
How the jurors interpret key evidence is likely to depend on how much, or how little, of the unfamiliar science they understand.
Closing arguments are scheduled to start Tuesday.
For two months, jurors have heard from a parade of authorities who sifted through the ashes of Greene’s Midland home.
Those authorities say they’re certain Greene, 42, set the fire two years ago that killed her children.
Then the jurors -- none of them scientists -- heard from experts for the defense, who used calculus formulas and charts of temperature rates. The experts’ conclusion: Greene couldn’t possibly have set the fire that killed Daniel Macemore, 10, and his sister, Addison, 8, on Jan. 10, 2006.
Arson is harder to prove to juries than other crimes, said Peter Beering, a former arson prosecutor who is now terrorism preparedness coordinator for the city of Indianapolis.
“It’s the only case in the criminal code when you have to prove there was a crime first,” he said.
Photographs show Greene’s house was filled with smiling pictures of Daniel and Addison when investigators searched in the hours after the fire.
Investigators found the children’s bodies, charred pieces of their blankets and a melted kitchen play set in Addison’s room.
Within two days, they suspected arson. Prosecutors rounded up experts and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to make that case.
An agent from the State Bureau of Investigation and one from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives traveled to Greene’s house to study burn patterns on the walls and floors.
Those patterns show the fire was set on a baker’s rack in an alcove outside Addison’s bedroom, the investigators said. Prosecutors also say the bedroom door may have been locked from the outside. Investigators found footprints on a bedroom wall, showing Daniel had tried to escape.
ATF researchers then built three replicas of the house, spending about $50,000 on each, and burned them to compare the damage to Greene’s house.
Greene started the fire, they told jurors.
Prosecutors were armed with another key piece of evidence: a statement they described as a confession.
In the days after the fire, authorities questioned Greene three times. After the third interview, she signed a statement that read in part: “I did not tell the whole truth in my other statement. I went back to my daughter’s room and caught that blanket on fire.”
Interpreting the evidence
Greene’s defense attorneys dissected that statement line by line with the investigators on the witness stand. Greene said she might have started the fire, they noted, but she didn’t say she did so intentionally.Defense attorneys Lisa Dubs and Robert Campbell of Hickory have made a name for themselves tackling high-profile murder cases.
Last year, they helped win the release of Jerry Anderson, the Caldwell County farmer who was accused of killing his wife and stuffing her body into her pickup truck’s toolbox. After that jury deadlocked 11-1, the district attorney dismissed the charges.
Dubs also helped acquit Christy Holland Seitz, who was charged with murder in the 1996 death of her boyfriend. Prosecutors said she conspired in the killing, but Dubs pinned the crime solely on the man who shot the boyfriend.
Campbell and Dubs said the fire at Greene’s house was started by a candle in Addison’s bedroom and may have spread when Greene used a blanket to try to smother the flames.
They placed three experts on the stand who said they found flaws in the ATF tests. The experts, paid with public money, culled measurements from large notebooks of data collected by ATF. They testified that the data show the fire started in Addison’s bedroom, not in the alcove outside.
Fire science is relatively new
Now jurors have to analyze the expert testimony from both sides.
Before the 1970s, most U.S. law enforcement agencies didn’t use a scientific approach to arson investigation, James Quintiere, a University of Maryland professor, said in an interview last week.
Instead, fire investigators would draw conclusions based on other fire scenes they had seen, rather than collecting measurable data, Quintiere said.
The use of scientific evidence to investigate fires didn’t become widespread until the 1990s. The National Fire Prevention Association released its first guide for fire and explosion investigations in 1992. Prosecutors and defense attorneys have referred to the latest version of that guide in quizzing witnesses in Greene’s trial.
A 1998 book by Quintiere advocated a scientific approach to fire investigation. The ATF bought hundreds of copies.
Beering, the former arson prosecutor in Indianapolis, said arson trials are relatively rare, so experts in the field are less practiced at testifying before juries than, say, toxicologists and homicide investigators.
Even now, however, arson investigation doesn’t provide the scientific near-certainty of DNA or toxicology, Quintiere said.
“You can’t just go to a definitive test that says, ‘That bullet came from this gun,’ ” he said. “What science brings to it is some calculations that allow you to measure aspects of the fire. If you can make things fit, then maybe science can lead you in the right direction.”
What happens next
Jurors will have the choice of finding Greene guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree murder or involuntary manslaughter or finding her not guilty, Judge Robert Bell said Friday.
After closing arguments, Bell will explain the law, and jurors will start deliberating.
The side whose witnesses did the best job of thoroughly explaining the science in clear language may win the day, Quintiere and Beering agreed.
“If (jurors are) not in this field, it’s going to be gibberish to them,” Quintiere said.
Copyright 2008 The Charlotte Observer