David Lee Gavitt

 

Cases such as this one always reminds me of the Cameron Todd Willingham case out of Texas. Thankfully David Lee Gavitt not only was not sentenced to death as Willingham was but even better, he was not executed, again, as Willingham. Still, David Gavitt lost his freedom for nearly twenty-seven years based on false science and over zealous prosecutors who decided they all knew best and knew what had happened. I do not just blame the experts who testified to things that were already becoming questionable, but also the prosecutor who dismissed all witnesses who had seen David Gavitt the night his wife and two young daughters were dying inside their burning home and testified to his emotions. Instead the prosecutor told the jury that he “really didn't seem too bent out of shape about saving his family. Yes, he was crying. Yes, he was carrying on, but he sure as heck wasn't doing anything.”

On the night of March 9, 1985 David and Angela Gavitt went to bed around nine in their Ionia Michigan home. Their two daughters, three year old Katrina and eleven month old Tracy were asleep in another bedroom. The couple had left the television and some candles burning in the front room of the home. David reported that about an hour later the couple was awakened by their dog scratching at their bedroom door. When he opened the door he realized that the front room was on fire. He stated he yelled for Angela to wake the children and then he went to a back spare bedroom and broke open the window. In doing so he severely cut his arm. David said he began hollering for Angela but got no response and then he headed towards the kids' room but was forced to crawl due to the flames and smoke. As his hair began to singe and he was feeling burns on his back he decided he had to turn around and head out the window that he had broken.

The neighbors had seen the fire and had contacted the fire department. Once out of the house David and another neighbor tried to enter the house again to reach Angela and the children. They failed but neighbors would say that David continued to try and try and they had to continually pull him back until by the time the fire department arrived and the house was fully in flames. Firefighters described the fire as a “rolling inferno.”

David was sent to the hospital. Aside from the cut on his arm he had what was described as “severe” burns on his feet, arms, back and face. When firefighters were finally able to get inside the home they would find the bodies of David's family. It would be determined that they died of CO2 poisoning.

Almost immediately investigators decided that burn patterns and the like indicated that the fire had been intentionally set and that some sort of flammable liquid had been used. They interviewed David and pressed him hard but he steadfastly denied that he had set the fire that killed his family.

David spent several weeks in the hospital recovering from his wounds but soon after his release he was arrested and charged with arson and three counts of first degree murder. His trial began in February of 1986.

The prosecution had three expert witnesses testify. They testified that the fire was “obviously” intentionally set. They spoke of pour patterns and that it was believed that at least two gallons of gasoline had been been pour mainly in the front room of the home but all over the home. They pointed to three points of origin and claimed that the depth of the burning in the floor and the patterns that were left all pointed to arson. A lab technician claimed to take several samples of debris from the home and that in at least two of the seventeen samples he found evidence of gasoline. He also claimed that he had done a test on the carpet from the home and testified that the only way it would have burned as it has was if flammable liquid was applied.

The prosecutors had no theory as to a motive as to why David would have intentionally set his home on fire and allow his family to be killed. There were no reports of violence in the relationship and David had no criminal history. No one could testify that there was trouble in the marriage at all.

Defense attorneys did not consult their own fire expert. They simply relied on David's story, the fact there was no evidence personally against him proving he had started the fire and the testimony of neighbors who spoke of seeing him that night and how distraught he was and determined to reach his family. On February 14, 1986 David was found guilty on all charges and on April 18^th the judge sentenced him to life in prison.

In 1988 the Michigan appeals court denied his case and the following year the Michigan Supreme Court also upheld the conviction. Still David maintained his innocence.

While at the time of David's conviction there were already questions being raised by new fire investigators about many of the things that had been considered to be facts when it came to fire investigations, many of the die-hard investigators were not keen on believing the new evidence. The Cameron Todd Willingham case changed a lot of things despite the fact that the state of Texas still executed him. In fact, while researching this case I found an article that stated that Texas was leading the country in fire investigation information.

In the fall of 2010 The Michigan Innocence Clinic took David's case and began investigating. New experts were called into look at the case and all of the evidence. On September 14, 2011 a post-conviction petition was filed with the courts with all of the new information. Basically all of the new fire experts argued that every bit of the evidence used to prove that the fire was intentionally set was wrong. Not only had new things been learned over the decades but they had also learned that the things used in this were just flat wrong. It was even discovered that the lab technician who had stated he tested debris and found evidence of gasoline had read the machine incorrectly. The new experts explained that the “old” experts “bundled arson myths together” to make their case.

The prosecutor seemed to be a pretty decent guy. So many times you will see prosecutors argue old cases that they were not initially involved in and maintain the guilt of the convicted. From time to time you will find a prosecutor who is willing to make sure that things were done right and an innocent person was not convicted. That being said, they also should make sure they are doing the right thing. When the petition was filed the prosecutor asked that he be given time to have his own experts look things over.

It took some time but even the experts that the prosecutor enlisted to look at the case agreed with those working with the Innocence Clinic. On June 5, 2012 with the defense and prosecution standing side by side David's conviction was overturned and the charges dismissed. I am unclear why he was not released immediately but he was released the following day.

David's first stop was to the cemetery where his wife and daughters were buried. At the time of his release there was no bill in Michigan that allowed those wrongly convicted to be compensated. However, eventually one did pass in Michigan and in 2019 he was awarded $1.3m for the nearly twenty-seven years he spent in prison. He has since re-married and gained “bonus” children and grandchildren.

A 2014 article stated that there were at least seventeen people who had been convicted of arson on the National Registry of Exonerations. Most of those were based on the fact that the investigations were flawed.

One of the new phenomenons discovered over the years is something called “flashover.” This is when a fire reaches a point in which it literally explodes and “envelopes” a room. It is believed that this happened at the Gavitt home considering the firefighters at the scene had seen what they had called a “rolling inferno” that allowed them no entry into the home. Along with that it had been discovered that pretty much all of the evidence in which former experts claimed were indications of pour patterns or were definite indications that a flammable liquid had been used were debunked. They learned that these same patterns and things could still be present in accidental fires.

The problem now lies with the fact that while innocent people are no longer being accused of committing arson, it is theorized that some guilty people are potentially getting away with crimes. With there being fewer ways to determine if arson has been committed more fires are considered to be “undetermined” and while that is enough to prevent innocent people from being charged, it also prevents the guilty from getting caught.

Even still my mind always still goes back to Cameron Todd Willingham. I have often said in this blog my position on the death penalty. I am neither for, nor necessarily against it as I feel as if the worse of the worse deserve the death penalty. However, I have also said that I only find the death penalty appropriate when there is absolutely no chance that the convicted is innocent. I never thought that the case with Willingham and I still do not. While his case helped people really look deep into arson cases and re-examine the science, the fact of the matter is that this was all coming to light before his execution and yet the state of Texas followed through with it.