New fire science could overturn arson convictions across the nation

The clues were everywhere. A young woman lay dead in a burned church camp cabin in East Stroudsburg, Pa., while her father survived. Most of the lessons taught to budding fire investigators stood out at the scene. The local experts spoke without hesitation that the evidence proved arson — and murder.

No one questioned the conclusion. The father, Han Tak Lee, a South Korean immigrant, received a guilty verdict and life sentence.

Except within a few years of Lee’s conviction, scientific studies smashed decades of earlier, widely accepted beliefs about how fires work and the telltale trail they leave behind.

Today, fire investigators are taught that the clues relied upon in the 1989 investigation of the cabin fire do not prove anything more than an accident. Some of the leading U.S. experts on arson say that Lee was the victim of a horrible tragedy, and he is not a criminal. There could be hundreds more wrongfully convicted of arson, such experts say.

Rejected by courts

Pennsylvania courts have repeatedly rejected the argument that the prosecution’s case was built on bad science.

“I never killed my daughter. I never set the fire. I’m not the right person to be here,” Lee, now 71, said through a translator at the Rockview, Pa., medium-security prison. “This is not arson. This is an accident.”

A definitive count is not possible, but fire investigators nationwide estimate there could be hundreds of mistaken arson prosecutions, built on ideas that were uprooted more than a decade ago.

The new arson science could become the most powerful tool to reveal wrongful convictions since DNA testing began overturning rape and murder cases in 1989. Critics also say it is still occurring, because some investigators still prosecute cases based on discredited methods.

“How do you know someone is guilty if you don’t know a crime has been committed?” said Richard Custer, a principal architect of a pivotal document on arson that helped bring the changes to light.

Another investigator, John J. Lentini, has been a consultant on Lee’s case, analyzing evidence and testimony. His conclusion: “While the Commonwealth’s witnesses may have believed that they were testifying truthfully, the fact is that the jury was misled by objectively false testimony.”

The Lees were in Pennsylvania 17 years ago because Han Tak Lee and his wife had hoped to heal their oldest daughter’s bipolar disorder.

Han Tak had come to New York City from South Korea and started a clothing business, working until he could bring his family over to join him. Medication initially helped his oldest daughter, Ji Yun, but things were unraveling again. So the family’s Pentecostal pastor suggested the church retreat. Father, daughter and preacher prayed until the wee hours of the morning.

Then came the fire that investigators said pointed clearly to Lee. Part of the reason is what they were taught about arson back then:

• Fires always burn up, not down.

• Fires that burn very fast are fueled by accelerants;

• “Normal” fires burn slowly.

• Arsons fueled by accelerants burn hotter than “normal” fires.

• The clues to arson are clear. Burn holes on the floor indicate multiple points of origin. Finely cracked glass, called crazed glass, proves a hotter-than-normal fire. So does the collapse of the springs in bedding or furniture, and the appearance of large blisters on charred wood, known as “alligatoring.”

Decades
of observation

Firefighters and investigators arrived at those conclusions through decades of observation. But the beliefs had never been given close scientific scrutiny until the 1970s and 1980s. Once researchers began to apply the scientific method to beliefs about fire, they fell apart.

A major revelation came from greater understanding of a phenomenon known as flashover. When a fire burns inside a structure, it sends heat and gases to the ceiling until it reaches a certain temperature — and then in a critical transition, everything combustible in that space catches fire. Instead of a fire in a room, now there is a room on fire.

When that happens, it can leave any number of signs that investigators earlier thought meant arson — like the burn holes on the floor that used to prove multiple starting points. And it can cause a fire to burn down from the ceiling — not up.

Significantly, flashover can create very hot, fast-moving fires. It can occur within just a few minutes, dashing the concept that only arson fires fueled by accelerants can quickly rage out of control.

The studies chipped away at the old beliefs, but it took years. Through the 1980s, texts at the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Md., still taught the traditional techniques.

Fire association change

It was not until 1992 that a guide by the National Fire Protection Association — “NFPA921: Guide for Fire and Explosion Investigations” — laid out, in a document relied upon by authorities nationwide, that the earlier beliefs were wrong.

“It’s not that they’re bad investigators or there’s been any conspiracy to promulgate erroneous conclusions — it’s just the way it was,” said Richard Custer, former associate director of the National Fire Research Laboratory and a principal editor of the 1992 guide. “How many years did we think the Earth was flat?”

In the hours before daybreak on July 29, 1989, police and firefighters quickly became suspicious. Han Tak Lee seemed calm. He did not cry. He sat across from the burning cabin with two bags of luggage at his feet.

State Trooper Thomas Jones, doubling as county fire marshal, wrote in his report: “Mr. Lee remained almost emotionless and while in view of this officer made no attempts to console his wife (when she arrived from New York later that day). Mrs. Lee on the other hand was being escorted to the scene and upon nearing the burnt building almost collapsed and had to be physically assisted from the scene.”

Prosecutor E. David Christine Jr. argued Lee’s demeanor was not of a grieving father.

But Koreans say that men traditionally do not express much emotion, and never in public. Lee is nothing if not traditional, his wife and surviving daughter say.

Lee said that, watching the cabin burn, he was overwhelmed and stunned into silence. “I found that I just lost my spirit and my mind there. It felt like all the blood drained out of my body. In Korea, men are not allowed to cry. If your daughter is suddenly found dead, there’s nothing you can do. You just lost your soul. You can’t even think,” he said.

Lee’s story did not convince investigators. He claimed to have fallen asleep, exhausted after praying, and woke to the smell of smoke. Fire was in the small cabin’s other bedroom, his daughter’s bedroom. He ran out. She was not outside. He ran back, called for her, did not hear or see her, and thought she had already escaped. He threw the luggage out the door. He banged on the bathroom door and, overcome by smoke and fire, went out the back door.

With a crime already suspected, the pieces soon fit into place. Investigators found pour patterns on the floor that indicated multiple points of origin, “alligatored” charring, crazed glass and damaged furniture springs.

Lee’s lawyer never disputed the conclusion of arson. He argued instead that Ji Yun had started the fire herself to commit suicide. The family has never accepted that. She viewed suicide as a sin, they said.

Jurors did not accept the defense attorney’s argument, either. They believed the experts.

On Sept. 17, 1990, they convicted Lee of murder. Several appeals before Pennsylvania courts have won him no relief.

Prosecutors did not return repeated phone calls. An assistant prosecutor argued before the court that the new science was “two expert witnesses that have opposing views.” A state court agreed and rejected Lee’s claim.

Lee’s attorneys appealed that decision on Nov. 27 to the state Supreme Court.

“System run amok?”

Other experts have looked at Lee’s case and agreed with Lentini’s conclusions. “That’s a perfect example of a system run amok,” said David M. Smith, a former city bomb and arson investigator in Tucson, Ariz., who retired to start his own investigation firm.

How many could be wrongfully convicted of arson?

There are 500,000 structure fires per year; 75,000 of them labeled suspicious. Lentini, who has campaigned to improve investigators’ knowledge, said most experts believe the accuracy of fire investigators is at best 80 percent — meaning as many as 15,000 mistaken investigations each year — and who knows how many convictions. The hardest part is that there is often no clear guilty party or explanation.

In Lee’s case, another defense investigator argued it started from an electrical short, but Lentini said the hard evidence either burned or was ignored by the county investigators.

For the Lees, there is no getting past the tragedy that took Ji Yun, but they still want one more chance from the justice system.

In prison, Han Tak Lee exudes a desperate hope as he meets with a reporter and translator. For the lone Korean speaker among 2,061 inmates, it is a rare chance to hear his native language. “I never regret,” he said. “I have very strong faith. I will get out as a free man.”

Topics Pennsylvania