By Steven Smith of the Daily Sun Staff
A 24-year-old Corsicana man, convicted Thursday of capital murder in the deaths of his three daughters, was sentenced to death Friday.
Cameron Todd Willingham Thursday was found guilty of the deaths of 1-year-old twins Kamron and Kameron and 2-year-old Amber. The children were killed in a fire at their home Dec. 13, 1991.
On what would have been Amber’s third birthday, it took the eight-woman, four-man jury about an hour and 45 minutes to decide Willingham posed a continuing threat to society and there were no mitigating circumstances in the crime, thus deserving what First Assistant District Attorney John Jackson called “the ultimate punishment.”
The courtroom was silent and Willingham showed no emotion when District Judge Kenneth “Buck” Douglas pronounced the sentence of death by lethal injection.
After court was adjourned Jackson said the District Attorney’s office felt the jury reached the proper verdict based upon the evidence presented, but said he was never happy with a case such as this one.
“The whole proceeding was tragic,” Jackson said of the case. “We have three children dead. … We have a father sentenced to death because of his own moral perversity.”
Defense attorney Rob Dunn said that, because he believes the death of the children was the accidental result of Willingham committing arson, a life sentence was called for rather than the death penalty.
“We believe there was ample evidence to merit a life sentence,” the attorney said. “I don’t think the crime was an intentional crime – maybe setting the fire was an intentional act and I think it got away from him.”
In his final statement before sending the jury to decide on Willingham’s punishment, Dunn called the panel the “conscience of the community” and said that most of Willingham’s numerous run-ins with the law “have been because of the sniffing of paint.”
“The situation is tragic – the whole situation is tragic,” said Dunn. “But if you jurors are herded into a ’yes’ or a ‘no’, as the state’s going to try to have you, are you helping or compounding the problem?”
Jackson, in his closing statement, rebutted Dunn’s inference that arson was the crime Willingham actually meant to commit.
“This is not arson – this is murder. We only have to look at the photographs of these children…to know, it’s not arson. It’s a triple murder you have found the defendant guilty of,” he told the jury. “He committed the horrible, senseless and selfish crime of the murder of his three children.”
All trials ending with a sentence of death are automatically appealed in Texas and defense attorney David Martin said the case should come up for review within the next 12 months.
Jackson, on behalf of the District Attorney’s office, extended thanks to agencies that participated in the investigation of the case, including the Corsicana Police Department, the Corsicana Fire Department, The State Fire Marshall’s Office, the Gainesville Police Department, The Cook County Sheriff’s Department, the Navarro County Sheriff’s Department, the District Attorney’s Office of Carter County, Okla. and the Police Department of Ardmore, Okla. Jackson also said the District Attorney’s Office expressed thanks to the citizens who sacrificed their time and effort in the successful prosecution of the case.
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