True Crime Stories

  I came across this case when I was reading a book called “Burned: A Story of Murder and the Crime that Wasn't” by Edward Humes. Much like the book I read recently on the murder of Roger “Scott” Dunn, the case did not end when the book did. In the latter case there had been a prosecution without a body. The book was published in 2005 and in 2012 Scott Dunn's body was finally found. Humes' book was the story of a woman who was convicted of starting a fire that killed her three children. This is one of those cases in which I was glad I read the book to know more of the story because while researching the case online there was not as much information as was provided by the book. Burned was published in 2019 and argued that JoAnn Parks had been wrongly convicted of murder. The book very much dove into the investigation that was later taken over by the California Innocent Project (CIP) as well as what had been discovered about the nature of fire since the “crime” had oc...

  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 th...