Eugenia Willingham, stepmother to Cameron Todd Willingham, has responded to Willingham’s ex-wife’s recent statement which claimed that she believes Willingham was guilty.
“First, Todd’s ex-wife reportedly says now that he confessed to her. I don’t believe this is true. More importantly, I don’t understand how anyone can believe what his ex-wife says, given how much her story has changed and how often it has changed. In my eyes, she is simply not credible after so many versions of this story, which makes the evidence — or lack thereof — all the more important.
Second, the fact that Todd didn’t run into a burning home is not proof that he set the fire. He tried to go back into the house and authorities had to restrain him. Even if that weren’t the case, human instinct prevents people from running into fires that will kill them. We may all think we would run into a serious fire to rescue someone, but human nature takes over in the moment.”
After turning down a scheduled appearance at an anti-death penalty march last weekend, Eugenia Willingham said that she did not believe Willingham committed the crime because he would not take away her only grandchildren. She also said that she is not against the death penalty as a concept.
Meanwhile, a writer for the Corsicana Daily Sun has fired back at the national media for their coverage of the Willingham case.
In yesterday’s Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Janet Jacobs chronicled her attempts to cover the Willingham story and criticized the media’s coverage of the controversy.
“After reading the third or fourth of Willingham’s conflicting stories, I was starting to go, ‘Whoa, who is he kidding?’
But I’m a skeptic, and the rest of the media, including all those self-important, head-swollen horses’ hineys at larger papers and magazines who have forgotten what objectivity means should be skeptical, too.”
Jacobs also said that the story may be part of an agenda to have the death penalty abolished.
“Just for funzies, let’s try this explanation on for size: Maybe this isn’t about Todd Willingham at all, but is a nicely packaged political campaign to get rid of the death penalty. If the goal is to have a fair and scientifically based investigation into deadly fire cases, why is there so much heavy-handed pressure to come to a conclusion before it’s finished?”
Click here to read Jacobs’ full article.
