An Innocent Man By Victoria Rexroat

Over the years there has been cases of execution in which the convicted were proven innocent on a later date.

Cameron Todd Willingham was one of the wrongly convicted. He was charged with murdering his three young children by arson. Arson is when a person purposely sets fire to a home or open land. Willingham was executed on February 17, 2004 by lethal injection.

Amber Louise Kuykendall along with her twin sisters, Karmon Diane Willingham and Kameron Marie Willingham, died in the fire said to have been set by their father.

Many people during Willingham’s trail and holding were protesting his soon to be conviction.

On February 17, 2004 Cameron Todd Willingham was walked to the execution room. When he was asked if he had any last words he said, “Yeah. The only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent man convicted of a crime I did not commit. I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do. From God's dust I came and to dust I will return, so the earth shall become my throne.”

Huntsville Unit

In 2009 Willingham’s case regained attention. Many arson experts looked over the evidence from the trail and found that arson was very doubtful. There was evidence that had been over looked and left out of the trail. If the evidence had been included Willingham might not have been executed.

Willingham’s case had been further complicated by allegations that Rick Perry, the Texas governor at the time, replaced three of the nine investigators at the Texas Forensic Science Commission (T.F.S.C) to attempt to change the findings of the investigation. Perry denies everything.

I believe that an innocent man was killed and wrongly accused of a crime he did not commit. Cameron Todd Willingham was an innocent man and died because of false evidence. There have been other trails like his, with false evidence. The death penalty is wrong, cruel and should not be legal in any state.

The following slides are those of Willingham’s trail. The burned house, him, and the three children that died in the house fire.